


Spare Clips

by Rhiannon87



Category: Uncharted
Genre: Anniversary presents, Bar Room Brawl, Birthday, Boot shopping, Cameras, Canonical Character Death, Car Accidents, Castles, Christmas, Climbing, Doctors, Dramatic timing, Drawing, F/M, Flirting, Flowers, Friendship, Gen, Getting Lost, Grenades, Grief/Mourning, Guitars, Hallucinations, Headcanon, Hospitals, Injury, Journalism, Meta, Noncanonical Character Death, PS3, Pets, Pickpocketing, Pregnancy, Prompt Fic, Shooting lessons, Street Signs, Texting, Translation problems, Wedding Rings, Weddings, Whiskey - Freeform, car theft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-15
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-07 19:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 130
Words: 46,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhiannon87/pseuds/Rhiannon87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short Uncharted prompt fics, courtesy of tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Baby!Nate and Young!Sully, learning to shoot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [historymiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/gifts), [virusq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/virusq/gifts), [Flutiebear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flutiebear/gifts), [beltsquid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beltsquid/gifts), [Lady_of_Rohan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_of_Rohan/gifts), [totallynotamage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/totallynotamage/gifts), [Caryl (Starshone)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starshone/gifts), [VespidaeQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VespidaeQueen/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> historymiss: Sully teaching young!Nate to shoot!

The kid’s scared of guns.

It really shouldn’t be that surprising, all things considered—Nate still hasn’t provided an age (or a birthday, a hometown, a country of origin, or a favorite color), but he can’t be more than fifteen. That mess on the roof was probably the first time he’d held a gun. Probably the first time he’d had anyone shoot at him, or corner him with a gun trained on his chest. Being scared makes sense.

But Sullivan sorta wants to keep the kid around, just for a while, long enough to make sure he won’t get himself killed. And traveling with Victor Sullivan requires a basic knowledge of firearms, if only so the kid can return fire when people inevitably start shooting at them.

Which is why they’re sitting in the back of a “borrowed” pickup truck a few miles outside a little town in southern Panama with Sullivan’s gun collection laid out before them. Nate’s leaning against the side of the bed, trying to feign nonchalance and failing miserably. His hands are balled into tight fists and he keeps inching away from the guns ever-so-slowly.

Sullivan sighs. “They’re not gonna bite ya,” he says.

Nate flinches, startled, then arranges his face into a picture-perfect teenage scowl. “I know.”

He wonders, not for the first time since leaving Cartagena, why in god’s name he decided that picking up a teenage apprentice was a good idea. Then he shakes his head and picks up the middle of the three guns. Nate tracks the movement with his eyes, tensing a little bit as though he’s bracing himself for a shot. “First rule of gun safety,” Sullivan says, making sure he keeps the gun aimed well away from both of them, “is to always treat a gun like it’s loaded. I don’t care if you just pulled the clip out yourself. You’re holding a gun, act like it’s loaded.”

Nate just nods and scoots away another inch. “Second rule,” Sullivan continues. “Don’t point a gun at something you don’t plan to shoot.” Another nod. “Third rule—don’t ever, _ever_ shove a gun down the front of your pants. There’s always somewhere else you can stash it and it ain’t worth the risk to your nuts.”

That, at least, gets a smirk and a snicker out of the kid. Sullivan grins back and tilts his head towards the back of the truck. “C’mon. I didn’t set up all those bottles for nothing. Let’s see if you can hit something by sunset.”

Nate snorts and jumps to the ground. “I can hit them,” he says.

Behind him, Sullivan rolls his eyes. Misplaced confidence isn’t much better than misguided fear. “We’ll see,” he says, sort of diplomatically, and puts his hands on Nate’s shoulders to square up his posture before passing him the gun. Nate glances at him, but he doesn’t pull away. That’s progress.


	2. Anniversary Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> virusq: the most unusual anniversary gift.
> 
> I could have resisted the Star Wars reference. I chose not to.

Nate peers over the top of the low stone wall, then ducks back into cover as a hail of bullets slam into it. "Dammit."

"That doesn't sound good," Elena says as she reloads her pistol. "You have a plan?"

"You've known me _how_ long!?"

She snorts and rolls her eyes. "Right. Of course you don't."

He grins at her and angles the assault rifle over the top of the wall, firing blindly at the mercenaries who have them pinned. Elena scans the small courtyard behind them. She perks up and elbows Nate in the side. "Cover me," she says and dives toward the far wall. Nate curses under his breath and aims another spray of bullets over the barrier. 

Less than a minute later, Elena half-rolls, half-crawls back to cover. "You know," she says conversationally, pausing as the mercenaries open fire on their position. "I just realized what day it is."

Nate glances at her. "Thursday?"

She holds up a bandoleer of grenades and smiles. "Happy anniversary."

He blinks, then leans in and kisses her hard. "I love you," he says with a downright sappy grin.

"I know." Elena grins and hands him a grenade, then primes one of her own. "On three?"


	3. Wedding Rings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> virusq: Nate and Sully shop for a wedding ring.
> 
> Turned into shopping for wedding rings, plural, but the spirit's still there.

“Y’know, kid, I’m pretty sure this is the sort of thing you’re supposed to do with your fiancé.” 

Nate shrugs, idly scanning the glass jewelry case, paying somewhat more attention to their security measures than the actual rings. “Elena’s in Manila until next week,” he says. “The wedding’s the week after that. She told me I could pick out rings and send her pictures if I wasn’t sure what to get.”

Sully frowns. “So why am I here?”

“Because she told me that she’d gone over her data plan for the month in two days and I couldn’t send her any more pictures.”

Sully blinks at him, then pinches the bridge of his nose. “Great.”

“C’mon, Sully, you’ve gotta help me out here,” Nate asks. It’s not whining. He’s thirty-three years old, he certainly doesn’t whine. “I know more about breaking through the security systems here than I do about picking out symbols of eternal love and commitment.”

“And you think I know more about this than you do?”

Nate shrugs again. “Between the two of us, we should be able to figure this out.” Sully just arches an eyebrow at him; Nate catches his look and sighs. “I’m doomed, aren’t I,” he says.

“Maybe a little. Have you tried calling Chloe?”

“Laughed at me and hung up the phone.”

Sully rolls his eyes. “Charlie?”

Nate’s face lights up. Charlie had done a stint as a jewelry thief back in the day, before he’d switch career tracks into treasure hunting and general thuggery. “You,” he says, digging his phone out of his pocket, “are a lifesaver. This is why I bring you along.”

“Uh-huh.”

Nate paces off a few steps, listening to the phone ring. “The hell do you want, Nate?” Charlie hisses by way of greeting. There’s shouting and what might be gunfire in the background on his end of the call.

“Hey, Charlie! Listen, this is very important-- what do you know about wedding rings?”


	4. Nate, Elena, and a parking garage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flutiebear: Nate and Elena and an errant car key… but nobody knows to which vehicle it belongs. Make it saucy.

Nate slides in next to Elena and grins triumphantly. “Ta-da!” he stage-whispers, holding up a car key. “Told you I could get it.”

Elena smirks. “Yes, you did.”

“Which means,” Nate continues in a low voice as he leans towards her, “you lost the bet.”

“I didn’t take the bet,” Elena says. “Betting against you getting the key just seems self-defeating.”

“You did so.” He smirks at her, his hand resting just above her knee. “I said, ‘Wanna bet I can pickpocket the car key off of the guard,’ and you said ‘Whatever, Nate, just get us a ride.’” Elena raises her eyebrows at him. “I’m taking ‘whatever’ as the terms of the bet,” Nate explains.

She rolls her eyes. “That is the most generous reading of the word ‘whatever’ that I’ve ever heard.”

“Mm-hm.” Nate shifts closer, ducking his head to press a kiss to her jaw, and Elena takes a deep breath before putting her hand on his shoulder and pushing him back.

Nate looks wounded and Elena resists the urge to smack her hand against her forehead. “Can we discuss the non-existent terms of the non-existent bet _after_ we’re no longer hiding in the museum parking garage?”

He sighs dramatically. “Oh, fine. You and your common sense,” he says and slowly gets to his feet.

“That is why you keep me around.”

Nate glances down at her and smiles—a rare, honest thing that’s utterly disarming. Elena’s never told him what that particular look does to her; he’d probably try to weaponize it. “One of many, many reasons,” he says and offers her a hand up.

Elena lets him pull her in a little closer than necessary. “So,” she says, tilting her head back to look up at him, “where’s the car?”

He blinks at her, then holds up the key and squints at it. “Well, it’s a Ford,” he starts. Elena groans and drops her head against his chest. “C’mon, how many cars can there be?” Wordlessly and without looking up, Elena points behind her. Nate moves away, and she counts his footsteps until he reaches the edge of the wall. There’s a moment of silence. “Oh, son of a _bitch._ ”

“Yep,” Elena agrees, turning to face him. “Something like that.”

Nate stares out at the crowded garage floor. “So, uh, how many levels--”

“Eight.”

He pauses for a long, long moment, tapping the car key against his leg, then spins on his heel and starts walking back towards the security office. “New plan,” he announces. “We wait for the guard to come out, tail him to his car, then when he realizes he doesn’t have his key, we take the car and leave.” There’s an empty stairwell near the office, and Nate pulls open the door and ushers her inside. “In the meantime,” he says as the door swings shut, “shall we discuss the terms of the bet?”

Elena shakes her head. “You didn’t meet my conditions,” she replies, slowly backing Nate towards the wall.

“I got the key,” he says and holds it up as proof just as his back hits the wall.

“Uh-huh,” Elena says. She plants one hand on the wall beside his arm and smirks up at him. “But I told you to get me a ride.”

Nate blinks at her, then smirks back. “Oh,” he mutters, sliding an arm around her waist, “I’ll get you a ride--”


	5. Nate, Elena, and a very familiar videogame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> flutiebear: Nate & Elena buy a PS3 and play this "Unmapped" game they've heard so much about... 
> 
> (Or, flutie baits my weakness for all things meta.)

_Hour 1_

“I don't understand why you spent so much money on this.”

“You broke your leg, Nate.”

“And that explains the game system how?”

“You broke your leg, and you're effectively stuck on the couch for the next few weeks. If you don't have something to entertain you, you will go crazy and burn the apartment building to the ground.”

“You do know I have no idea how to work any of this, right?”

“You're smart. You can figure it out.”

 

_Hour 1.75_

“Oh, my god, Nate, seriously, you know what, just-- just give me the controller. This is painful.”

“I told you I didn't know how to work this!”

“It's not that complicated.”

“This combat system is completely unrealistic, by the way.”

“It's a _game_ , Nate.”

“...did you just shoot that guy in the head with a handgun?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.”

“...I think I'll just watch you play.”

 

_Hour 3.5_

“Incoming ambush.”

“How can you tell?”

“All the waist-high walls to hide behind. See?”

“...but that's just what ruins look like.”

 

_Hour 5_

“Okay, seriously, how many notebooks can he fit in his back pocket?”

“How many can _you_ fit?”

“Two. Plus a couple folded maps. And a few pencils.”

“...uh-huh.”

“Wait, is that the solution to the puzzle? When did he have time to write that down? People have been shooting at him since he got to this island!”

 

_Hour 7_

“I'm hungry.”

“So order a pizza. I'm sorta in the middle of something here.”

“I think these things come with a pause button, Elena.”

“And I think you know how to operate a phone. I'm sneaking past guards.”

“Yeah. Guards who appear to be blind. And deaf. How did they not see you choke that guy out?”

“No idea. I want pepperoni and onions.”

 

_Hour 8.25_

“Wait, hold up, there's werewolves on this island?”

“Apparently.”

“I did not see that coming.”

“I think that's sort of the point.”

“Why are there Soviet werewolves!?”

“I don't know, but they need to stop chewing on me and the badass love interest. I'm really sick of reloading this part.”

“Want me to try?”

“No. This is a matter of honor.”

“...ooookay.”

 

_Hour 9_

“Elena?”

“Shh. Sniping werewolves.”

“Um. It's almost midnight.”

“Okay.”

“I was thinking we could maybe go to bed?”

“Let me just finish this level.”

“This cannot end well.”

 

_Hour 11.5_

“Yes!”  


“Mwrrrh?”

“I beat it!”

“...already?”

“Well. It's a pretty short game.”

“Oh. Yay.”

“Were you asleep?”

“It's, like, two a.m.”

“Oh. I guess I probably shouldn't start on the next game then, huh.”

“Oh, god. There's more?”


	6. Elena and Sully, like family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> beltsquid: something that explores Elena's relationship with Sully?

Sully's a little surprised when Elena climbs into the cockpit of his new plane. "Hey, sweetheart," he says, taking his eyes off the controls long enough to flash a warm grin at her. "Thought you'd be spending quality time with your husband."

He picks the words deliberately, and Elena smiles in response. She looks better than she did when they landed a week ago. Calmer, maybe. More at peace. They're good for each other, her and Nate. Damn shame it took Nate so long to work it out. "He's sleeping," she says. "Apparently he hasn't done much of that lately."

"Yeah." Poor kid damn near got himself killed at least three times, trying to save Sully's skin. Nate might have his faults, but no one could question his loyalty. Sully glances at Elena again. He sort of expects that sort of thing from Nate, after all this time. But Elena... "I heard you were planning on staging the daring rescue on your own," he says.

"Mm-hm." Elena nods. "To be honest, I'm still a little mad he ditched me at the airport. It was _my_ plan. And somehow I have this feeling that if I'd been there, the plane probably wouldn't have blown up."

"Things do explode at an alarming rate around him, I'll give you that." Sully hesitates for a moment. "I guess I'm just not clear on why you were trying to come after me, I guess."

Elena doesn't reply right away, and he looks at her again to see her staring at him with an almost bewildered look on her face. "Why wouldn't I?" she finally asks. "I'm married to your son, Sully. That makes you family. Of course I'd try to rescue you from crazy power-hungry British thieves."

She sounds so matter-of-fact about it. Sully chuckles and shakes his head. Nate doesn’t know how lucky he is. "You know what?" he says. "I'm sorry I convinced Nate to ditch you at the dock in Panama. He was right about you."

Elena just grins. "Don't worry about it," she says. "It all worked out, didn't it?"

"Yeah. It sure did."


	7. Elena and Chloe and a bottle of whiskey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> flutiebear: Elena. Chloe. Cigars. A bottle of whiskey. And passing the Bechdel test. Left to their own devices, can they find ANY common ground to stand on? 
> 
> The cigars didn't make the cut, but everything else did.

Chloe does a double-take when she sees the other woman walking towards her table at the back of the bar. “Elena,” she says. “I... didn't realize you'd be the one coming”

Elena shrugs and slides into the chair across from Chloe. “Neither did I,” she admits. “But there were-- complications. Everyone's fine,” she says, off Chloe's startled look. “Just... well, I'm the one who was able to make it on time.”

“Ah.” Chloe blows her hair out of her eyes. This is going to be one long stakeout. “Well, if we're going to be stuck here, we might as well try to enjoy ourselves,” she says. “First round's on me. What're you having?”

Elena glances towards the bar and drums her fingers against the table. “This place have decent whiskey?” she asks, and Chloe's opinion of her moves up a couple notches.

Forty-five minutes later, they're both halfway into their second glasses of whiskey, with no sign of the thieves they're supposed to be keeping watch for. “Look, I'm five-foot-four and a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet,” Elena says, gesturing with her free hand. “Of _course_ I had to learn to throw a punch.”

Chloe chuckles and shakes her head, leaning back against the cracked wood. “It's just surprising,” she says. “You come off so...” She racks her brain for the appropriate word. “Wholesome,” she finally settles on.

Elena smirks and takes a sip of whiskey. “No one ever sees the right hook to the eye coming,” she says, fluttering her eyelashes innocently.

“I'll bet.” Chloe snags the bottle of whiskey and tops off her glass. “Me, I usually just go for the balls. Or the nose. Broken quite a few.”

“Which one?” Elena asks with a grin and leans across the table to take the bottle back.

“Eh. Both.” Chloe shrugs. “God knows there's plenty who need it, especially in my line of work.”

Elena shakes her head. “That is one of the downsides of a legal occupation,” she says. “It's not socially acceptable for me to punch my colleagues when they're being obnoxious, petty back-stabbers.”

“You've never thought about going the ranks of us fortune hunters and thieves full-time?”

Elena laughs. “Someone has to be legitimate enough to smuggle all of you in and out of countries,” she says. “Besides, I like what I do. Uncovering corruption, exposing the truth... it's good work.”

Chloe shakes her head and raises her glass in a toast. “To your unwavering idealism, Sunshine,” she says.

Elena clinks her glass against Chloe's. “And to punching people in the face.”

“I'll drink to that.” Chloe takes a healthy drink and sighs, then swings her feet up on the table. “It's been almost an hour. I don't think they're coming.”

“Okay, that's fine, because we need to have a serious discussion about where you got those boots.”


	8. Perils of Climbing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> vannessasketch: Ooh! How about a time when Nate thought a ledge he was shimmying across would hold but it didn't, and a time when he thought it would break but didn't? Because damn do those ledges know their dramatic timing.

_The one that didn't hold..._

“Think you can make it, kid?” Sully asks.

Nate scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Of course,” he says, tracing out his path up the wall with his eyes. Exposed bricks to vines to window ledge to cracked stone to window ledge to bricks to chain to balcony. Then from the balcony, unlock the gate so Sully can get in. Easy as lying. He could make a climb like that with his eyes closed. 

Okay, well, maybe not that easy. Nate rubs his hands together and nods to himself. “Here we go.”

It goes fine, for the first four steps. He was a little worried about relying on the crack in the wall, but it was a fine hand-hold, easy enough to get a grip on. The trouble comes when he launches himself up and over to the second window ledge. As soon as he trusts his full weight to the stone, it shifts ominously under his hands, and Nate has just enough time to look up and go “uh-oh” before it snaps off the wall.

The scream that follows is wholly undignified, and Nate's very glad that Sully's the only witness. Sully understands that some things are to be taken to the grave. He lands flat on his back on the first-floor roof, the wind knocked out of his lungs, and he's too stunned to do anything to stop himself from rolling off the sloped incline and splashing into the moat below.

The first coherent thought he's able to manage is _dammit, I hope there aren't crocodiles._

Nate manages to work out which direction is up and surfaces, gasping and spluttering. “Goddammit, kid, you okay?” Sully calls from the shore, and Nate slowly turns himself in the direction of the sound.

“More or less,” he rasps. “Why the hell didn't either of us learn to pick locks?”

 

_And the one that did._

Nate risks a glance over his shoulder as he tears through the twisting corridors of the ancient temple. A few bullets thud into the wall just behind him, and he picks up speed. “Great job, Nate,” he mutters to himself. “Just great. This is going--” There's a metallic clink behind him, followed by the familiar beeping of a grenade, and Nate hurls himself around the corner with a yelp. “Just great,” he concludes once his ears stop ringing.

The new corridor is collapsed about ten feet in, leaving a thin strip of stone along the wall connecting the floor to the stairs on the far side of the hall. The ledge looks wide enough for him to stand on, but Nate's not entirely confident in the structural integrity. He skids to a stop at the edge of the gap and peers down. “Oh, yeah, no way I'm making that jump,” he mutters.

The mercs are getting closer, shouting to each other in what Nate's pretty sure is Swedish (and all this time he'd been told the Swedes were a peace-loving people, which was clearly a pack of  _lies_ ), and without any other options, Nate steps out onto the ledge. He inches across, his back pressed to the wall, his attention fixed on his shoes and the forty-foot drop just below them. Nothing between him and a messy, painful death but an inch of cracked, ancient stone.

Which, against all odds, holds his weight. Nate steps onto the first stair and glances behind him with a grin. “That went well,” he says, then the mercenaries round the corner and he starts running again.


	9. One chapter, three prompts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> beltsquid: Sully steals Nate's journal back from Marlowe, five places Elena wants to go with Nate, meeting with Charlie and Chloe again.

_[Sully steals Nate's journal back from Marlowe.]_

Kate hasn't changed as much as she might like to think. She still sets up her headquarters in the most expensive hotel in the city, she still wears black when it's way too hot for it, and she still hates Nathan Drake.

Sully stares at the table in front of him. Everything Nate had collected for this godforsaken adventure is spread across the table, his maps and notebooks and his goddamn ring. The kid would never have willingly parted with it. And Kate-- Marlowe, dammit, she's not Kate anymore-- wouldn't tell him how she'd gotten any of it. “He gave it to us, Victor,” she'd told him with a cold smile. “Just like he gave us you.”

He wants to believe that she's lying-- but if she is, then Nate is almost certainly dead. It hurts less, thinking the kid might have sold him out, but he knows Nate better than that. Nate has his flaws, to be sure, but he's loyal almost to a fault. There's almost no way he'd have cooperated with Marlowe.

Which means he's probably dead.

Marlowe's standing at the door of the hotel suite, talking to Talbot in a hushed voice. The door's flanked by two matching guards (another thing that hasn't changed, her goons all wear the same goddamn suits), and Sully looks at the table again. There has to be some other explanation. Some answer where Nate's still alive out there.

“Let's move,” Marlowe snaps, striding back to the table. She picks up Nate's ring and slips the leather band over her head, and Sully's fingers dig into his knees as he keeps himself from lunging across the table and ripping it out of her hands. That's Nate's, dammit. That's his--

She doesn't seem to notice Sully's ill-contained anger. “You two, take him to the secondary convoy,” she says, gesturing at her guards as she heads for the door. “We'll go on ahead.”

The guards approach, and Sully slowly gets to his feet, holding up a hand to keep them from grabbing him. “I'm comin', I'm comin',” he mutters. Playing the doddering old fool gets easier with every year that passes. Eventually he is gonna be too old for this shit. Hell, he's probably too old for it now. He moves around the table, still going slow, and pretends to stagger, his hand skidding across the surface. The guards are too occupied with keeping him from falling flat on his face to notice him palm the notebook and slip it into his pocket.

They march him out of the room, and another goon starts packing up the notes. Sully sighs. If nothing else, at least he managed to get something of Nate's back.

 

*

_[Five places Elena wants to go with Nate. Alternate title: My Headcanons, Let Me Show You Them.]_

The list of places she and Nate haven't been is a pretty short one, all things considered. Between the two of them, they've been to every continent (even Antarctica, because Nate is kind of insane sometimes) and literally hundreds of cities. But there are some places they haven't gone together, and that's the important piece. Elena has a few places she wants to visit with him.

Rome is first, mostly just because she finds it bizarre that they've never been there together. They've both made it to the city separately, but somehow in all the time they've known each other, they've never managed a visit together. It'd be fun trip-- ancient ruins and museums and good food. Someday, they'll make it out there. 

She wants to take a trip to France for similar reasons-- it'd be fun-- but the fun she has in mind is somewhat different. Nate's fluent in French, apparently, though she's only ever heard a handful of phrases out of him. But that was enough to convince her that Nate speaking French is incredibly hot, and she really needs to manufacture more excuses for it to happen. A lengthy trip to France is one.

The other places she wants to go are more personal. She'd like to get Nate to take her to Cartagena, or maybe even San Antonio, see where he grew up. Where he met Sully and started on the path that eventually crossed with hers. She doesn't think it'll ever happen, though. Nate likes to pretend his life started when he was fifteen, on the outskirts of Cartagena. He won't talk about anything before that.

And someday, she wants to go back to Tallahassee. Show Nate where she went to school, where she got in her first fight (that right hook of hers started young). Show him the house she grew up in, the park she and her friends wasted their weekends in. Maybe even take him to her parents' graves, if she can make it past the cemetery gates without bursting into tears. As curious as she is about Nate's past, she can't fault him for not talking about it. She understands, all too well, that sometimes it's easier to just ignore the gaping hole inside. 

Still. Maybe someday, they'll be able to go.

 

*

_[Meeting with Charlie and Chloe again.]_

“Nate!” The look of shock on Chloe's face is almost-- _almost_ \-- enough to make up for that stunt she pulled two years ago, before the job with Flynn. “And-- Elena, hi.”

“Hey, Chloe,” Elena says with a wave. Nate doesn't miss the way Chloe's eyes drop to their joined hands, or the arched eyebrow she directs at him.

“Is that Nate?” Charlie calls from somewhere inside the flat. “Tell him to get his sorry ass in here!”

Chloe laughs and steps aside. “He's been staying with me,” she says, holding the door open for them. “His loft's a bit tricky with a broken leg.”

“She's holding me prisoner, mate,” Charlie says, hobbling in on his crutches. “I'm perfectly fi-- Elena! Darling, how are you, it's been too long, come here!”

“Hey, Charlie!” Elena lets go of Nate's hand and crosses the room to give Charlie a hug. It's a little awkward, since he's almost a foot taller than her and leaning on crutches, but they manage. Nate can't help a grin as he watches Elena steer Charlie towards the nearby couch.

“So,” Chloe says, sidling up beside him, “you two are back on, then?”

Nate nods, running his thumb against his wedding band on instinct. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.” 

“Good.” Chloe takes his elbow and walks him to the other couch. “Now, you owe us an explanation. What happened after you left Syria?”

Nate groans and half-falls into the seat beside Elena. He really should have written this down or something. Repeating the story is starting to get old. “All right, so, we landed in Yemen..."

  



	10. Elena and Chloe, boot shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> flutiebear: Elena and Chloe go boot shopping. Or “shopping.”
> 
> Inspired by the concluding line at the end of the "Elena and Chloe drinking while on a stakeout" scene (Chapter Seven).

“Oh, good, this place is still here,” Elena says, pushing open the door of her favorite shoe store in Berlin. It's a tiny place, a hole in the wall that smells like leather and rubber, but they sell the best boots in the northern hemisphere and she will hear no argument to the contrary.

Chloe lets the door fall shut behind her and nods. “It's convenient, if nothing else,” she says. 

“Yeah.” Elena scans the shelves, hoping that they might have a pair of boots similar to the ones she wrecked in Tibet. Those boots could take a lot, but the combined stress of a war-torn city, a mountainside, a creepy monastery, and Shambhala more or less ruined them. She hadn't been able to find a pair like them since.

“Ooooh,” Chloe says from the front of the shop. “I could _so_ pull these off.” Elena looks over to see her admiring a pair of thigh-high brown leather boots, covered in straps and buckles. “Utterly impractical, but still.”

“What would you even wear with those?” Elena asks. Not pants, that's for sure.

“Very little.”

Elena chuckles and goes back to searching the shelves. She finds a set of black lace-up boots in a back corner, similar to the ones Chloe's wearing, and while she could probably make them work, she's not entirely sure she wants to start dressing like Chloe. She likes brown better, anyway.

“Oh, hey, Elena, how about these?” Chloe calls. Elena heads back to the front of the shop; halfway there, though, the walls rumble with the familiar sound of something exploding.

Elena groans. “I didn't even get to try them  _on_ ,” she grumbles.

“They'll probably still be here when we get back,” Chloe says, reaching into her jacket for her gun.

“They better be,” Elena mutters. “If not, I'm blaming Nate.”

“That's usually a safe bet,” Chloe replies as she shoulders the door open, and they run out into the alley.


	11. Nate and Sully, Hungarian castles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Photo Prompt](http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/27051585517/writers-block-a-picture-says-a-thousand-words)

“Wow,” Nate says, a faint smile on his face as he gazes at the ruined castle rising up above the treeline. Rolling green hills stretch out as far as the eye can see, and a warm breeze ruffles through his hair as he looks out over what can really only be called a magnificent vista. No wonder the original builders had chosen this spot.

“Yep, impressive,” Sully agrees. “Now let’s go rob it.”

Nate sighs. “You have no respect for history, Sully.”

“I have lots of respect for history, kid,” Sully replies, heading for the path down the hill. Nate sighs and trails after him. “I respect it. I value it. I especially respect how much _other_ people value it, and how much cash they’re willing to part with as a display of that value.”

Nate rolls his eyes. “The village is already practically a museum,” he says. “You really think there’s anything left for us to steal?”

“My source seems to think so.”

“Uh-huh. This ‘source’ wouldn’t happen to be a pretty bartender twenty years younger than you, would it? Because last time you took a tip from the girl serving you drinks, we ended up stranded in a cave in Bolivia.”

Sully scoffs. “It wasn’t that bad—”

“For three days.”

“Better than ending up in prison!”

“There were bats, Sully.” Nate heaves a sigh and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I don’t like bats.”

“There really aren’t any caves around here,” Sully points out.

“Well, yeah, but there’s probably dungeons or cellars— and you’re avoiding the question!” Nate takes a couple steps forward and pokes Sully in the shoulder. “Who’s your source?”

Sully glances at him sideways but doesn’t answer. Nate comes to a stop in the middle of the narrow dirt path. “Oh, god,” he says. “It _is_ some barely legal bartender, isn’t it.”

“She’s the hotel receptionist, and she’s older than you,” Sully replies.

“Okay, great, so she’s twenty-two and a half,” Nate says. “That is not a reliable source!”

Sully half-turns and gestures for Nate to keep walking. “We’ll just have a look around, kid. It’ll be fine.”

Nate groans and hurries after him. “If I end up in a Hungarian prison, I’m blaming you!”


	12. Nate and Elena, dinner before theft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sometimescoherent: Nate and Elena have a romantic dinner between games. Nate gets distracted by something shiny.
> 
> Set between Drake's Fortune and Among Thieves, probably closer to the former than the latter.

“You know, when Sullivan said you had a funny idea of romantic, I figured he just meant that exact moment, not universally.”

Nate looks away from the loading bay door and grins. “Oh, I can do chocolate and flowers and candlelit dinners, but you’ve gotta admit, this is way more fun.”

Elena sighs. He’s right, damn him, even if she’ll never admit it. “I made reservations, you know.”

“The restaurant is right across the street. We’ve still got some time to kill.”

She checks her watch. “Nine minutes.”

“Oh, I can finish that fast.” Elena smirks and raises her eyebrows; Nate pauses in examining the lock and glances back at her. “That didn’t come out right.”

“Uh-huh.” She shakes her head and folds her arms. “C’mon. Just pick the lock, grab whatever shiny thing you saw through the window, and let’s go.”

Nate drops the heavy padlock. “I don’t know how to pick locks,” he says. Elena blinks at him as he backs up and tilts his head back, surveying the museum’s storage annex. “Gonna have to climb in.”

“You don’t… you’ve been a thief _how_ long!?”

He shrugs. “Depending on when you want to start counting, sixteen to twenty-two years.”

“And you can’t pick a lock.”

“Never needed to.” He nods at the window ledge about seven feet off the ground. “Climb up the wall, get to the roof, find a maintenance shaft.” Nate grins and rubs his hands together. “I haven’t gotten to crawl through a ventilation shaft in ages.”

He takes a step towards the building; Elena grabs the back of his shirt. “We have six minutes before we’re supposed to be at dinner,” she says. “It’ll take you that long just to get to the roof.”

Nate sighs mournfully. “But the statue is _right there_.”

“And it will still be right there after dinner.” She hooks her arm through his and turns him back toward the alley. “Besides, there’ll be fewer people around, and I can grab more reasonable shoes from the car. If we end up having to run from guards, I’d prefer not to do it in three-inch heels.”

He chuckles and lets her guide him back towards the street. “Oh, fine. You and your common sense.”

“I still can’t believe you don’t know how to pick a lock.”


	13. Baby!Nate and Young!Sully, autumn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Image Prompt](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maf43keuNJ1r2591yo1_500.jpg)

“Oh, wow,” Nate says in obvious delight as he stares at the ruined staircase, and before Sully can stop him he takes off running, shoes crunching through the fallen leaves. Fall's different, up north; he's spent the first fifteen years of his life much farther south. It's colder here, for one, which kinda sucks, but there's so many more trees and hills. It's nice.

Behind him, Sully heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Careful,” he calls.

Nate ignores him in favor of scrambling up the stairs. He pushes the bare branches aside, tugging his sleeve free when it catches, and bounds up to the top. It's not much of a view, but there's a lot more rubble on this side. Maybe the stairs led to a tower? “What do you think it used to be?” he calls down to Sully, who's standing by the smaller arch.

“Guard tower, probably,” Sully replies. Nate sits down on the remains of the wall and digs his notebook out of his bag. The stairs look cool from up here, twisting down to the forest floor, and he wants to try his hand at drawing them. Sully sighs again. He does that a lot, Nate's learning. “C'mon, kid,” he says. “We've got places to be.”

“The ruins aren't going anywhere,” Nate replies as he starts sketching.

Sully snorts and shakes his head. “Fair enough,” he says, and sits down on the bottom of the stairs. 

Nate smirks and easily incorporates him into the drawing, a solid figure with his elbows on his knees as he stares out at the forest. He knows a lot about Sully, what kind of beer he likes and his favorite movies and the way he always breaks left when going through a door, but there's way more he doesn't know. They have a rule-- no asking about their lives before Cartagena, but they can volunteer information if they want. And Sully's only slightly more willing to talk than Nate is.*

About ten minutes pass in near-silence while Nate sketches and Sully fiddles with his guns. He carries a spare pistol for Nate, but he won't let Nate carry it around himself. “You're still learning,” he'd said last time Nate had asked. “I'd have to carry your skinny ass to a doctor if you shoot yourself in the kneecap, and believe me, that is not a conversation I wanna have.” 

Nate finishes with the drawing and holds it up, glancing between the lines on the page and the real thing. It's not bad, though the stairs don't look quite right. The curve's kinda hard to draw properly. But it's not like he's got hours to sit and practice. They do have some ruins to raid, after all. He stands up and brushes off his jeans, then bounces down the stairs.

Sully hears him coming, and by the time Nate reaches the ground, he's standing and tucking his gun back into his holster. “Let's see,” Sully says, holding out his hand. “Since you're holdin' us up and all.”

Nate narrows his eyes at him, but Sully's smirking, probably just teasing. If he really minded he wouldn't have let them stop in the first place. Nate glances down at the notebook again. He doesn't usually show people his drawings, not unless they're maps or something useful. And he knows that if he says no, Sully won't push it. That's part of the reason he hands his notebook over-- he doesn't _have_ to.

Sully tilts his head to the side as he studies the drawing, and Nate wills himself not to fidget. After a few seconds, Sully grins and hands it back. “Cool,” he says. “Let's go.”

“Thanks.” Nate stuffs the notebook back in his bag and falls in step with Sully. Sully glances at him sideways, then abruptly slings an arm around Nate's shoulders and reaches over to ruffle his hair. “Agh! Leggo!”

Sully just laughs and releases him. “We gotta get you a haircut, kid,” he says as Nate tries to smooth his hair back into place. Nate sticks his tongue out at him in response. Sully grins, holding a branch aside so Nate can scramble over a log, then leads the way down the hill to the ruined fort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon about Nate and Sully not talking about their lives prior to meeting comes from the excellent fic "Lifetimes Ago Yet to Come" by devera.


	14. Elena and Nate, mistranslation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For virusq: Elena. A mistranslation leads to a severe/hilarious situation.

“What did you do?!” Nate hisses, his hands behind his head while several angry-looking men aim guns at them

Elena shrugs helplessly, her hands in a similar position. “I told him we were looking for the airport,” she replies. “I, uh, I think.”

“You think? I thought you spoke Arabic!”

“I do!” She jerks her head at the armed men. “They, on the other hand, are speaking Farsi. Which is not Arabic.”

“Yeah. I got that.” Nate sighs. “Your translation app sucks.”

“Oh, believe me, if we get out of this, I’m writing a very angry letter to the company.”

He huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. “And studying Farsi?”

“Why am I the one who has to learn another language?” Elena shoots him a sideways look. The armed guards mostly look bemused at the fact that their prisoners are bickering instead of cowering in fear. “I already speak, like, five. It’s your turn.”

“If we’re going for a balance, I speak way more than five—”

A man with a thick beard and dark sunglasses leans around the doorway and barks an order. Both Nate and Elena blink at him,; he makes a face and points at the hallway behind him, then says something else. “I think he said to follow him,” Elena guesses. “Or… something about oranges. Could go either way.”

“Maybe we’ll get oranges if we follow him,” Nate says as he walks towards the door. Elena rolls her eyes and resists the urge to punch him in the arm. The day’s going badly enough already, the last thing she needs is to get shot.


	15. Nathan and his father, vaccines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For virusq: Nathan. Who knew vaccines were more miserable than the illness?
> 
> Once again, I take a prompt from virusq to the saddest place possible.

The kid won’t stop crying. Christ, it was just a pinprick, and he won’t stop—

“I want Mommy!” Nathan shrieks. He grits his teeth and ignores him, buckling the small child into the backseat of the car. The tape’s coming loose over the back window again, another thing that needs fixing that he can’t afford. Can’t afford this trip to the doctor, either, but it’s not like he’s got a choice. Dammit. “I want Mommy—”

“You can’t have her, okay?” he snaps. “She’s gone, so shut up already!” He slams the door, then slumps forward, his forearm against the roof and his jaw clenched. She’s gone. She’s gone, gone and never coming back, and it’s his fault, he knows it, he should have done something, should have seen it, should have known that she was going to…

He pushes off the car and shakes his head. Fuck. Get home, put Nathan in his room, drink for a few hours before the babysitter shows up. Won’t be the first time he’s turned up for his shift less than sober. He slides into the driver’s seat, hitching up the door so that it doesn’t catch. Nathan’s quieted in the backseat, his sobs reduced to sniffling and hiccups. Something twists in his chest, guilt and regret stabbing at him. He shouldn’t have yelled at him. He’s just a kid, not even five yet, he doesn’t know any better. He misses her, too. And they’re all they’ve got, just the two of them now that Rose is gone—

Nathan looks up, and his eyes are just like hers, and dammit, it hurts too much to see. So he looks away without saying a word and starts the car.

Some days, he really doesn’t know if he can keep doing this.


	16. Baby!Nate and Young!Sully, injured on the job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribbly-kimbree: the first time Bby Nate got hurt on the job.
> 
> All the Papa Sully feels. All of them.

That's his blood. That's a _lot_ of his blood.

Nate shoves his hand between his teeth, biting down so he won't scream or cry, and watches in horror as blood soaks into his jeans. It hurts like nothing else-- he'd injured himself plenty before he met Sully, falling off walls or getting into fights, but being shot is a whole other level. Sully's on the other side of the doorway, firing at the thugs, and Nate knows they're in trouble because Sully isn't talking. He always talks during a fight, taunts their opponents or tells Nate what to do or proclaims their imminent victory.

Sully fires three quick shots and ducks back into cover. He drops the empty clip out of the gun and glances over at Nate. “Get pressure on that, dammit,” he snaps.

Nate takes a shuddery breath before leaning forward and pressing a hand to the wound on his calf. Somehow, watching the blood leak through his fingers is even worse, and it takes everything he's got to keep from sobbing.

The shooting seems to go on forever, even though it's probably only about thirty seconds. “Fuckers,” Sully snarls with uncharacteristic venom, giving the hall one last scan before crouching next to Nate. “Let's take a look,” he says and gently pries Nate's hand off his leg.

Nate bites his lip and presses his bloody hands against his thighs to keep them from shaking. Sully tugs the leg of Nate's jeans up to his knee. “Just a graze,” he says, letting out an obvious breath of relief. “Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch though, right?”

Nate swallows hard and nods. Sully looks up at him, eyes wide with something like pity, and Nate _hates_ it when people look at him like that. “I-I'm okay,” he manages to choke out.

Sully squeezes his shoulder with his clean hand. “You're gonna be fine,” he says. “Promise.” He tugs lightly at Nate's long-sleeved t-shirt. “Pull this off. Hope you're not too attached, 'cause the blood stains are _not_ gonna come out.”

Nate obeys and hands the shirt over, then tugs his thin undershirt back into place. Sully pulls out a knife and quickly cuts a thick strip out of the shirt. He packs the rest of the fabric against the wound in Nate's calf, then ties it off tightly. “Okay. Let's get you up.”

Nate's kinda skeptical about that idea, but he lets Sully help him to his feet, keeping his weight off his injured leg as much as possible. Standing up _hurts_ , all the blood rushing back to the wound, and a sob escapes before Nate can choke it back. “It's okay, kid,” Sully says as he slides his arm across Nate's shoulder, supporting his weight. “It's okay. You're gonna be fine. I promise.”


	17. Chloe and Nate, lockpicking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For cypheroftyr: Someone notices that Nate can't pick locks, and he explains why.

"Locked. Damn." Nate steps back from the door and tilts his head back, scanning the walls for a quick way up.

Chloe crouches by the door and examines the lock. "This doesn't look that complicated," she says. "Can't you just pick it?"

"Nope." If he can get up to that window on the third floor... okay, fence to window to window to... damn. There's gotta be a way.

"What do you mean, 'nope?'"

Nate shrugs. "I don't know how to pick locks."

Chloe doesn't reply right away, and Nate glances down from his survey of the wall to see her staring at him in shock. "You don't... Nate, you're supposed to be one of the best entrymen in the business."

He makes a face. "Supposed to be?" He's absolutely one of the best, thank you very much. 

"And yet you don't know how to pick locks!?"

Nate shrugs and spreads his hands. "I never needed to!" he says. "Most of the time, I can climb around or shoot the lock off. I just... never learned." He pauses, thinking, then looks back at Chloe. "And I don't see _you_ volunteering with a set of lockpicks."

"That's because I'm the wheelman, Nate," Chloe replies, in a tone usually reserved for explaining fundamental concepts to small children. "I don't need to know how to pick the lock on a door because I'm usually sitting in an alley two blocks away."

"What if you need to break into a car?" he asks, looking back at the wall. Maybe if he started on the building across the way, climbed over... it's a decent jump, but he can probably make it.

Chloe chuckles. "Then I do the coat hanger thing or, you know, grab a brick. It's not like anyone responds to car alarms anymore."

"Fair enough." Nate traces out his planned route with his eyes and nods. "Okay. I'm gonna get in the window up there. You sit tight, I'll come down and let you in."

Chloe sighs and backs into a shadowy corner. "You probably just refused to learn because you like climbing better," she mutters. Nate grins and doesn't deny it.


	18. N. Drake Avenue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired, though not directly prompted, by cypheroftyr. A direct result of a text from her informing me that there's a Drake Avenue in Chicago, and my own Google Maps search that turned up a North Drake Avenue.

Sully looks up from his blueprints of the Field Museum and frowns at the door, which is making some weird scratching and beeping noises. After a few moments, there’s a thunk, followed by Nate’s voice. “Sully,” he calls. “Door’s broken.”  
  
He rolls his eyes and gets up to let Nate in. “It’s not broken,” Sully says as he opens the door. “You just can’t— what is that?”  
  
Nate steps past him and into the hotel room. “It’s mine,” he replies.  
  
“Is that a street sign?”  
  
Nate looks down at the green and white sign in his arms. “Yep.”  
  
Sully locks the door and follows Nate back into the room. He sinks down on the edge of his bed, trying to figure out where to even begin, and watches as Nate half-stumbles to the other bed. “Why?” Sully finally asks.  
  
Nate looks at the sign again, then holds it up. “‘Cause it’s got my name on it!”  
  
Indeed, it is a sign for N. Drake Avenue. Sully pinches the bridge of his nose. “Just how drunk _are_ you, kid?”  
  
“Very,” Nate replies with a sage nod.  
  
“You’re nineteen, how did you even get into the goddamn bar!?”  
  
“I’m _charming_.”  
  
Sully finds himself a bit torn— on the one hand, he’s glad that he was safely in their hotel room. On the other hand, he feels like he missed out on a pretty hilarious night. “How did you get the sign down in the first place?”  
  
“Oh, yeah. Had to steal a wrench, too.” Nate reaches into a pocket on his cargo pants and pulls out a wrench. He tosses it to Sully— or tries to, anyway. It lands on the bed about three feet to Sully’s right.  
  
“Where did you— you know what, no, I don’t even want to know.” Sully stands up and holds his hand out for the sign.  
  
Nate frowns and hugs his prize to his chest. “It’s mine.”  
  
Sully somehow manages to keep a straight face. “I’m just gonna put it in your suitcase, since I don’t entirely trust you to walk.” The suitcase is about eight feet away from Nate’s current position, and Sully still feels that it’s a valid concern.  
  
Nate ponders this for a moment, then nods and hands it over. Sully rolls his eyes as he unzips Nate’s suitcase and tosses the sign in. There’s a faint thump from behind him, and he turns to see that Nate has toppled over on the mattress. “Are you still awake?” Sully asks. Nate doesn’t reply. “Oh, for the love of…” With a sigh, Sully tugs off Nate’s boots and swings the kid’s legs up onto the bed. Nate better not be too hungover tomorrow— they’re spending the day scouting the museum, and Sully is not rescheduling to accommodate his drunken benders.


	19. Chloe and Charlie, doctors and lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribbly-kimbree: Cutter and Chloe finally make it to a hospital after the events in Syria, but they have trouble getting their story straight to the doctors as to how Charlie broke his leg.

There are many reasons that Chloe's glad she's not accompanying Nate and Sully to Yemen. Nate's acting kind of crazy, for one, more obsessed than she's ever seen him. Plus, they're counting on Elena to get them into the country, and that's a mess that Chloe wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Nate's her friend, and she wants him to be okay, but quite frankly, his marriage and his sanity aren't her problems to fix.

What _is_ her problem to fix, right now, is Charlie's busted leg. The nurses who greeted them at the hospital understood that Charlie needed a wheelchair, even with the language barrier, and they managed to get the x-rays done by relying on pantomime and charades. Now, though, they're waiting for an English translator so that the doctor can actually get useful information. Chloe scrubs a hand over her face and sighs. She's been awake for close to twenty-eight hours now, and without the adrenaline rush of people trying to kill her, it's getting harder and harder to stay awake.

She glances over at Charlie, who's slumped in his wheelchair with his broken leg held stiffly out in front of him. “How're you holding up?” she asks.

He huffs out a sharp breath. “I think I'd murder for a cup of tea right now,” he says, and Chloe chuckles wearily. 

“Mr. Cutter?” They both look up at the harried-looking young man heading their way. Charlie raises a hand in acknowledgment, and the man smiles as he hurries over. “I'm Shakir, the translator you requested,” he says. “I apologize for the delay-- an American student went into labor suddenly. Very stressful.” 

“It's all right,” Charlie says. “Not like I'm goin' anywhere.”

Shakir's smile fades a bit, like he's not sure if Charlie's joking. “Right,” he says and walks around to the back of the wheelchair. “I'll take you back to the doctor now-- your wife can come along, if you'd like.”

Chloe coughs in surprise. “We—we're n—”

“Of course,” Charlie says, cutting her off. “Come on, darling.”

She exhales sharply and shoves her left hand in her pocket. They are going to have _words_ about this later. She follows Shakir down the crowded corridors-- unlike almost everyone else she knows, she doesn't mind hospitals. Side effect of spending so much time in them as a kid, waiting for one or the other parent to finish with their shift and drive her home. To this day, the smell of antiseptic reminds her of math homework.

Once they're in the exam room, she leans against the wall, listening as Charlie gives his information to the doctor: name, age, allergies, yes, that's his wife. He flashes her a bright smile at that; Chloe grits her teeth and smiles back. 

“How'd you break your leg?” Shakir asks, translating for the doctor. Charlie doesn't reply right away, and Chloe blinks into the silence. Oh, shit. They really should have figured this out sooner-- it's not like they can just say 'jumped off a burning tower in one of your cultural landmarks.'

Shakir raises his eyebrows, and Chloe realizes that one of them has to say _something_. “He, ah, he fell down some stairs,” she says, cringing, because dear god that sounds weak.

Unfortunately, Charlie just makes things worse by speaking up at the same time. “I was playing football with some--” He cuts himself off and shoots Chloe a look.

Shakir's eyebrows manage to climb even higher on his forehead. “You seem a little confused,” he says.

They exchange looks again; Chloe shrugs helplessly. She's exhausted and she spent the evening getting shot at, she's _really_ not at her best right now. Charlie sighs. “I was playing football with some friends, and one of them kicked the ball over by the top of the stairs in the park,” he says, and Chloe lets out a sigh of relief. “I tried to kick it back, lost my balance, and fell.”

Shakir looks skeptical, but he relays the new version of events back to the doctor. The doctor frowns and turns to look at the x-rays again, then says something back. “This sort of fracture is usually consistent with a fall,” Shakir translates. “Also, where were you playing football at seven in the morning?”

Chloe just barely manages to keep from wincing. “I did fall,” Charlie says, a touch desperately. “Tried to catch myself and I landed wrong.” He demonstrates with a fist against his palm. “And, uh, I don't remember the name of the park. Just sorta joined a game while I was out walking.”

“I thought you said you were playing with friends.”

Chloe is about three seconds away from banging her head against the wall. Maybe if she does it enough, they'll give her drugs that will let her sleep. “Well, we're all friends by the time we're done playing, right?” Charlie says. “Brings people together.”

Shakir isn't buying it. “If you say so,” he mutters before translating for the doctor. The doctor looks skeptical, too, and he and Shakir exchange a few words before the doctor throws his hands up in an 'I give up' gesture. “He'll need to examine your leg now,” Shakir says, and Chloe steps out of the way so he can help Charlie up to the exam table.

Almost ninety minutes later, Charlie hobbles out into the waiting room, leaning on crutches and sporting a cast on his ankle. “All set, then?” Chloe asks as she stands up and slips her phone back into her pocket. She'd called Sully to swap updates-- she told him how Charlie was doing, he told her that he and Nate would probably be flying to Yemen later tonight or early tomorrow morning. Chloe had asked if they wanted to try to meet up again before they all scattered. Sully had just sighed and said he didn't think he'd be able to pull Nate out of his books. Nate was capable of some truly epic sulking fits, and between the night they'd had and the prospect of seeing his ex-ish-wife again, he had to be in an awful mood. Sully deserved some kind of medal for putting up with it.

“More or less,” Charlie says. Chloe leads the way to the door and holds the door open for him. “Can't wait to get back home,” he mutters as they step out into the mid-morning sun. “Too bloody hot.”

Chloe just rolls her eyes. “I'll buy tickets as soon as we get back to the hotel,” she promises. “And what's with you telling people that we're married?”

He laughs. “They wouldn't've let you in the room otherwise,” he says. “'sides, wouldn't be that bad, bein' married to me, would it?”

Oh, god. “I'm not going to dignify that with a response,” Chloe says, because she kind of cannot believe this conversation is happening. 

Charlie smirks at her; she shoots him a look, and he shrugs as best he can on the crutches. “All right, fine, be that way,” he says. “Let's get the hell outta here, shall we?”

Chloe nods and holds up a hand to flag down a cab. “Sounds like a brilliant plan.”


	20. Elena, only sane by comparison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For totally-not-a-mage: Elena looks like the 'only sane woman' when running around with a bunch of thieves and treasure hunters, but she goes on some pretty crazy adventures herself. What's that look like when she's NOT hanging around Nate & company?

Roger's got a good poker face. It's pretty much always frustrating, but never more so than now, when he's reviewing Elena's proposal for her next story. She shifts in the visitor chair and wills herself not to fidget as he silently turns a page. If she's right-- and she's pretty sure she is-- then this is huge. They can't ignore it, not if there's a chance to find Lazarevic and bring him to justice for his crimes. Stop him before he decimates the population of another few nations.

Her producer gets to the last page, and Elena carefully schools her expression into something neutral. She can't look too eager, she knows that. Roger nods to himself and sets the papers down on his desk, then folds his hands on top of it. “You're a great reporter, Elena,” he begins, “and I've got a lot of respect for your work.”

Oh, yeah. This is not gonna go well. “Thank you.”

“But are you out of your goddamn mind?”

And there it is. She sighs and leans forward. “Roger--”

“Elena, look, seriously, this is-- you have to realize how this sounds.” He gestures at the papers. “A dead Serbian warlord is--”

“He's not dead!” Elena cuts in. “Look, I've got several sources that say he's alive and well and putting together an army.”

“In Nepal.” She nods. Roger pinches the bridge of his nose. “And what exactly is he doing there?”

“That's what I need to find out,” she replies. “You read this guy's profile, you know what he's responsible for. What he's capable of. We can't just let him go free, he's got to be brought to justice.” Roger gives her a disbelieving, pitying look, the one she tends to think of as his 'oh, you poor idealist' expression. Okay, fine. So the angle of 'it's the right thing to do' isn't working. She'll try another tack. “And it'd be a hell of a story, proving NATO wrong like that.”

For a second, she thinks that maybe she's getting somewhere, but then Roger shakes his head again. “Let me just make sure we're all on the same page here,” he says. “You want me to send you-- one of my best reporters-- and a crew into an active war zone to track down a war criminal who was declared dead over ten years ago.”

“Yeah.”

He leans back in his chair. “Elena, I can't do that.”

“Oh, come on!” Elena smacks her palm against the arm of her chair. “You know I can handle myself. I covered the riots in Cambodia, that human trafficking operation in Algeria, the fighting in Georgia--”

Rogers holds up his hands, placating. “I know your _résumé_.”

“So what's the problem?”

He starts to answer, then stops, blinking at her. “You really want to do this, don't you.”

Um. Duh? “Wouldn't have asked if I didn't.”

He nods slowly. “And why do I get the feeling that even if I say no, you and a camera are going to disappear sometime in the next week, and I'm going to start seeing reports from Nepal anyway?”

“I don't know,” she replies with false innocence. “That sounds like it'd be illegal.” 

“Uh-huh.” Roger stares at the paper for a few long moments. “I can't give you a crew,” he says, and Elena bites her tongue to keep from grinning. “You get a cameraman, assuming you can find someone nuts enough--”

“Jeff said he'd go.”

Roger closes his eyes for a second and looks pained. “Of course he did. Was there something in the water, back in Cambodia? Made him as crazy as you?”

“No idea.” Elena gives up the fight and beams at him. “So we can go?”

“Yes. But you are going to have to sign every waiver our legal department can dream up, and we can't give you much support. Camera, satellite phones, some cash... we'll get you into the country and then you're on your own.”

She waves her hands dismissively. “That's fine. We can work with that.”

“And you probably want to leave as soon as possible,” Roger says, looking incredulous. Elena nods. “Fine. Come by with Jeff tomorrow afternoon-- and I mean one p.m., not twelve-oh-one-- and we'll have you sign everything. I'll work on getting your flight arranged.” He sighs. “I hope you know what you're doing.”

“Of course.” Elena gets to her feet. “Thank you.”

“I have no idea why you're thanking me.” He nods at the door. “Go, get your stuff together.”

“Right.” Elena walks calmly to the door and makes sure it's fully closed behind her before she punches the air in triumph. “Yes!”

Roger's assistant, Elliot, glances up from his computer. “Good news?”

“Got the Nepal story approved,” she says.

He does a double-take. “You're insane, Fisher.”

Elena shrugs and heads for the elevator. She's already packed, she just needs to get her equipment together here. Track down Jeff and tell him the good news-- with any luck, they'll be on the ground in Nepal in a few days. She grins as she steps into the elevator. It's dangerous, and it's for a good cause, but damn if this isn't gonna be _fun_.


	21. Nate, Sully, and Elena, Nate can't get down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For totally-not-a-mage: Nate climbs something, against the better judgement of Sully and Elena, and gets stuck and can't get back down.

“Are you sure about this, Nate?”

Nate shoots Elena an incredulous look. “I know what I'm doing.”

She doesn't quite roll her eyes at him, but it's a near thing. Nate shakes his head and looks back up at the sheer cliff-face overhead. They've been in these caves for a while, but if the shattered statues and ancient engravings on the walls are any indication, they're getting close to the temple. It could very well be at the top of the cliff.

“How are we supposed to get up there, kid?” Sully asks, gesturing at himself and Elena.

Nate heaves a sigh and plants his hands on his hips. “The people who built the temple got up there,” he says. “There has to be another way around. Or, I don't know, a ladder or a rope or something.”

“'Or something,'” Sully mutters. Elena chuckles, and Nate scowls at them both. He's been doing this for literally decades, and he's definitely managed tougher climbs than this. Hell, maybe he'll just leave them down there once he gets to the top. Teach them a lesson about doubting him.

Okay, no, he won't, but still. They could have a little more faith. Nate scans the cliff, picking out some likely handholds, then takes a running leap off the ledge and grabs onto the cliff. “See?” he calls over his shoulder. “Nothin' to it!”

Sully gives him a thumbs-up, while Elena just grins and shakes her head. Nate continues up the cliff, hopping from handhold to handhold, until he's about halfway up. He launches himself up and over to a rock jutting out from the cliff, and as soon as he gets his hands on it he knows he's screwed. It's crumbling before he can even get a good grip, and he drops with an undignified shriek, scrabbling at the wall for something to stop his fall.

He gets one hand into a crack in the rock and jerks to a stop. “Ouch,” he mutters. Well, that was almost a dislocated shoulder. Nate pulls himself up, gets his feet against the wall, and looks around for his next handhold.

There's nothing. For at least ten feet in every direction, the cliff is essentially smooth, no cracks or ledges or convenient vines. Nate looks around again, and then once more, just to be sure. “Uh-oh.”

“Nate?” Sully calls, and of _course_ this would happen when he's got an audience. “You okay?”

Well. He's never going to live this down. Better to just accept it and move on. “I'm stuck,” Nate says to the wall.

“What?” Sully asks.

Nate twists around to look back at them. “I'm _stuck_. There is nowhere for me to climb to from here.”

Elena blinks at him. “Can't you jump back?”

He looks at the really deep, really dark chasm below him and the fifteen-foot gap separating him from the ledge where Elena and Sully are standing. “Not from here.”

“Well, kid,” Sully says, in an amused tone that makes Nate want to punch him, “there's a first time for everything.”

“I hear it happens to lots of guys,” Elena chimes in.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Nate says. “Can you two make fun of me while figuring out a way to help me get down?”

Elena puts her hand to her mouth in an attempt to cover up a smile. “I think there were some ropes at the campsite back there,” she says, gesturing over her shoulder. “We can probably work something out.”

“Yeah. Let's go.”

They both turn towards the cave entrance. “Whoa, whoa, guys, you can't leave me here!” Nate calls.

“We can't do much for you just standin' here,” Elena says.

“And I've seen you support your body weight on one arm for five minutes straight,” Sully adds. “You'll be fine.”

Nate's shoulders slump as much as they're able. “Fine,” he says. “I'll just... wait here.”

“Just hang in there,” Elena says with a wink as she and Sully start walking away.

“Oh, or 'just hang out here,'” Sully adds.

“Oooh, nice. What about 'hang tight?'”

“Good one!”

Nate sighs and stares at the wall as their voices fade into the distance. “I am never going to hear the end of this.”


	22. Nate, worrying about Elena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For cypheroftyr: Nate worries about Elena when she's late coming home from an assignment.

She was supposed to be home two days ago.

Nate sits on the living room couch, flipping his phone over and over in his hand, and tries not to panic. Elena's in Mexico, reporting on the latest wave of violence in the drug wars, and she was supposed to be home two days ago. She's not home. He hasn't talked to her in three days. The last time she called, she was getting ready to go out for 'one last interview,' then she just had to pack up and get ready to come home. If she was going to be late, she'd have called.

She hasn't called.

He tried a few people at her network, managers and coworkers that he was able to find numbers for, but they won't give out information to anyone who's not family. Nate's just the boyfriend. And he gets it, he does, it's a safety issue and he knows that Elena's had to deal with a few creepy stalker types in the past. Normally, he appreciates that the studio is so protective of her. But right now, he hates them and their rules that won't tell him they know anything.

He stops flipping the phone around long enough to turn on the screen. No missed calls. Not that he thought there would be any, as he's had his phone in his hand more or less constantly for the last twenty-four hours. Nate swallows hard and goes back to staring at the wall. She has to be okay. She has to. He can't lose her, not like this. Not-- not ever, he doesn't _ever_ want to live in a world without her in it, and goddammit, why hasn't she called...

Someone knocks on the door. Nate jumps and drops the phone. It hits the ground with a clatter, but Nate ignores it, instead staring at the door with his heart thudding painfully in his chest. Knocking isn't good. It's Elena's apartment, she's got keys, she wouldn't knock, so why...

He pushes himself to his feet and walks to the front door, then takes a deep breath to steel himself before unlocking it and pulling the door open.

“Hey,” Elena says with an exhausted grin, a heavy-looking bag in each hand. “I'm--”

Whatever else she says gets lost when Nate all but tackles her in a hug, wrapping his arms around her and almost picking her up off the floor. “Thank god,” he mumbles into her hair.

Nate hears a pair of thuds as the bags hit the ground, then Elena's hugging him back as best she can with her arms pinned to her sides. “I'm sorry,” she says into his shoulder. “There was this disaster with the Mexican border control, they held us there for two days, wouldn't let us call anyone...”

“It's okay,” Nate says shakily. He clears his throat and takes a deep breath. “It's okay.”

They stand in the doorway for a few moments longer, then Elena pats his back. “Nate? I need to breathe.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He lets go of her, only to bring his hand up to her face, his fingers brushing against her cheek.

Elena smiles at him and catches his hand in hers. “You were really worried, huh.” Nate just nods. Elena sighs. “I'd have called before we got on the plane, but they'd confiscated our phones and by the time I got it back the battery was dead, and I just wanted to get home.”

“It's okay, really.” Nate manages to smile back. “I'm just glad you're back.”

Elena nods and picks up one of her bags; Nate grabs the other one and ushers her into the apartment. “Jesus, what are you carrying in here, bricks?” he asks. Elena laughs, and for the first time in two days, he feels like he can breathe again.


	23. Chloe and Charlie, drinking together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be drinking," Chloe says. "According to the prescription."

Charlie lowers the bottle so nothing interferes with the full force of the incredulous look he's giving her, then raises it to his lips again and takes a long drink. "If you think I'm not gonna have a beer after the week we've had," he says, "you're outta your bloody mind."

She shrugs and takes a sip of her own beer. They've been back in London for twelve hours, went straight to her flat from the airport. Her current plan is to somehow trap Charlie here so he won't attempt returning to his own place-- six flights of stairs up to his loft are going to be damn near impossible with that busted leg of his, but he'll try anyway. Probably fall down half of them and break the other leg.

"Think you can give me a lift back to my place later?" Charlie asks, echoing her thoughts.

Chloe shrugs and takes another sip. "Depends on how much I've had to drink," she replies. Charlie narrows his eyes at her, and she arches an eyebrow. "If you think _I'm_ not gonna drink after this week--"

"All right, all right, fair enough," Charlie mutters. "Your own bloody fault if I have to crash here, though."

"Mm-hm." Well, that's one night taken care of. She'll have to figure out something else for tomorrow.


	24. Nate/Elena, flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For silverchimera.

Nate stops in front of Elena's apartment door and frowns. He doesn't have enough hands to carry everything and dig out his keys. With a sigh, he kicks the bottom of the door twice in lieu of knocking. A few seconds later, he hears the hall floorboards creak, then the door swings open. “Did you lose your-- are those flowers?” Elena asks, blinking at him.

Nate bites back the sarcastic response of 'no, they're blowtorches' and hands over the bouquet. “Yep,” he says.

Elena looks a bit bemused as she peers at the flowers. Daisies, mostly, in a few different colors. “What's the occasion?” she asks with a half-smile.

He smiles back and shrugs. “Just thought you'd like 'em,” he says.

She looks up at him and grins, eyes sparkling, then holds the flowers away from herself so she can bounce up on her toes and give him a kiss. “Thank you,” she says. She grabs his hand and tugs him into the apartment. “C'mon, you can tell me about your job while I put these in water.”

Nate grins and shuts the door behind him, then follows her into the kitchen.


	25. Harry and Lazarevic, kill me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For virusq.

There it is. It's actually real. Harry shakes his head, smiling in disbelief. The Cintamani Stone is in the center of the room, perfectly round and a brilliant, blinding blue. They actually found it. And they beat Drake here. His smile turns savage, almost a sneer, and he absently swipes a hand across his forehead as one of the cuts on his face tugs open again. Damn, what he wouldn't give to see Drake's face when he gets here to find the stone gone.

Maybe he should leave a note.

Lazarevic slowly approaches the stone and rests a palm against it. He nods to himself, then walks past it, heading for the stairs on the far side of the room. Harry clears his throat. “Right, so, what's your plan for getting this thing out of here?” he asks.

“I'm not,” Lazarevic replies, still staring down into the jungle.

Harry blinks. “I'm sorry, what?”

“I am not taking the stone.”

What the hell...? “We came all this way, fought past those—those _things_ , and you're just leaving it here? What, you plan on taking over? I think the locals might have something to say about that--”

“You are a fool.” Lazarevic still hasn't turned around. Harry gapes at him. “That precious stone of yours is worthless. You think money will give you power. But do you know what true power is?” Oh, bloody hell, another one of these speeches. Harry rolls his eyes. “Strength of body. Strength of mind. Strength of will. The will to overcome anything... even death.”

He moves so fast Harry almost misses it. The gun's in Lazarevic's hand even as he turns, and the crack of a single shot is deafeningly loud. Harry staggers backward a step, the force of the shot hitting him just before the pain. Then it's everywhere, burning in his chest, holy shit, Zoran _shot_ him. Harry claps his right hand over the wound, stupid, futile, there's too much damn blood.

Harry can't do anything but stare, can't even stammer out a question, when Lazarevic stalks towards him and pulls a grenade off his belt. He pulls out the pin, then grabs Harry's left hand and slaps the grenade into it, wraps Harry's fingers tight around it. “For Drake,” Lazarevic says. “I suggest you hold on tight.” Then he shoves Harry back against the pillar and turns out his heel, barking orders at the soldiers as he heads for the stairs.

Harry just watches in dull shock as they disappear from view. That son of a bitch _killed_ him.


	26. Nate and Charlie, cheering up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For totally-not-a-mage.

“Look, it's not really that bad,” Charlie says. “It could happen to anyone.” Nate doesn't move from where he's slumped over the table in the corner of the bar. Charlie sighs. “She seemed like a very nice girl,” he continues. “I'd probably have made the same mistake.”

“She robbed me, Charlie,” Nate says, voice muffled in his arms. “She hit me in the head with something heavy and took the statues. And all my cash.” He turns his head to look up at Charlie with sorrowful, slightly unfocused eyes. “Those things are worth a small fortune, why would she need to take my cash, too?”

“Maybe she's gotta top off her Oyster card,” Charlie offers. Nate heaves a sigh and buries his face in his arms again. Charlie takes a sip of his beer. “You want a drink?”

“I have a massive head injury and no money.”

“I'm buying.”

“Oh, God, yes.” Nate raises his head off his arms slightly. “No tequila and please don't let anymore pretty women with museum passcodes rob me.”

“You got it, mate.”


	27. Nate/Elena, mourn me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For historymiss, who is terrible and evil and makes my heart sad. AU death!fic.

He has to keep breathing.

In, out. Keep taking one breath after another, keep his heart beating.

Like hers isn't.

Nate's vaguely aware that Chloe keeps trying to talk to him. She's trying to tell him something, but he can't really make sense of the words. Nothing's really made sense since she came out of Tenzin's house, her arms and coat still smeared with blood, and told him.

“Nate, I-I'm so sorry. She's-- Elena. She's gone.”

Even that doesn't make sense. The world without Elena in it doesn't make sense. It's not right. She has to be here, she has to be alive. She has to, because he still has to tell her--

She's dead and he never told her he loves her.

“Oh, god,” Nate whispers, curling forward, wrapping his arms around himself. Someone's got their arm around his shoulders, Chloe, probably, and he's distantly aware that he's shaking. His chest aches, far worse than the collection of wounds he brought back from Shambhala. Something like a sob escapes him, and he sucks in a deep breath. He has to keep breathing.

He just can't think of a reason why.


	28. Nate/Elena, draw me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For lady-of-rohan, "paint me like one of your French girls."

“Whatcha doing?”

Nate glances up from his sketchbook to see Elena peering up at him, her face mostly hidden behind blonde hair and pillows. “Drawing.” Jet-lag had him up with the sun this morning, but he didn't really want to get out of bed. So he's been doodling for the past couple hours. Something to keep his hands busy.

His answer seems to pique Elena's interest. She pushes her hair out of her face and sits up a little. “Drawing what?”

He shrugs. “I dunno. Maps and statues and stuff.” He's only halfway been paying attention, truthfully, and he glances down at the pages to confirm his own story.

“You should draw me,” Elena says and settles back against the pillows, posing a bit and trying to look like she's not.

Nate grins and reaches out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “What makes you think I haven't?”

“The fact that I'm neither a map nor a statue?”

He laughs at that and shakes his head. “Okay, fair point.” He makes a show of flipping to a new page and glances over at her, then starts to draw.


	29. Nate and Elena, show up at your front door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For lady-of-rohan.

Nate barely remembers Elena's address in Aden, much less how to get there. He gives the street name to a few merchants, but their pointing and pantomimes don't really help. Should've learned Arabic. Should've... should've done a lot of things differently. All he really wants is to be able to give someone her name and have them escort him to her door, but it doesn't work that way. After getting lost three times, he finally stumbles across someone who speaks English. He keeps interrupting himself to ask if Nate wants a doctor. Nate just shakes his head, mumbles something about needing to get home.

He's never been to her apartment here, but wherever Elena is feels like home.

The side door's unlocked, and Nate checks the number on the first apartment door he sees. 101. Elena's 511. And the stairs are at the far side of the building.

After everything he's been through in the past few days, what're a few flights of stairs?

Damn near everything, apparently. Nate has to pause at each floor, leaning against the wall while he waits for the light-headedness to pass. His legs are screaming in pain with each step, but he finally makes it to the fifth floor, limps down the hall until he finds hers. He tries the handle on instinct, and he doesn't really have the energy to be surprised when it swings open.

Nate slumps against the door frame, and Elena stares at him, eyes wide with shock, the phone in her hand momentarily forgotten. “Oh, my god.” She says something else into the phone, but Nate doesn't quite hear, just focuses his attention on taking those last few steps into her apartment. Then her hands are on his shoulders as she pulls him close, and he leans against her, letting her hold him up. “Elena,” he breathes into her hair, so quiet she probably doesn't hear, and wraps his arms around her. He made it back, and she's here, and everything will be okay. Somehow.


	30. Elena and Chloe, waiting for rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

Of all the things she hates about adventuring with Nate-- and to be honest, there aren't many-- the one she hates most is when she ends up in a situation where he has to rescue her. It's only happened a few times, and she's rescued him just as often, if not more, but still. It's the principle of the thing. Being the damsel in distress sucks.

Normally, she'd try to find a way to rescue herself, but given that she's at the bottom of a formerly conceal oubliette with a semi-conscious Chloe, her options are somewhat limited. She adjusts her jacket underneath Chloe's head. “That okay?” she asks.

“Uh-huh,” Chloe mumbles, blinking dazedly at the sky far, far overhead. “You hurt?”

“Nah,” Elena lies. She picked up an impressive collection of bruises and scrapes on the way down, and if the blood soaking into her tank-top is any indication, she's got a nasty gash on her left shoulder blade, but it's nothing immediately fatal. Chloe, on the other hand, slammed her head on something. She's bleeding from an ugly cut on her temple, and Elena's reasonably certain she has a concussion.

Chloe snorts and mutters something under her breath, might be 'liar' or 'martyr.' Elena decides to ignore it and pulls the knife out of the sheath on Chloe's hip, then angles herself so that Chloe can't see the blood on her back or on her button-up shirt as she slices a strip off it. “Here,” she says as she presses the makeshift bandage to Chloe's head. “Can you hold that?”

It takes a couple tries, but Chloe gets her hand up to her head. “How long've we been down here?” she slurs.

“Uh.” Elena looks at her watch. Broken. Of course it's broken. “Only a few minutes, I think,” she says.

Chloe makes a face. “Lads better hurry,” she says.

“No kidding.” Elena rubs her hands over her bare arms and tries not to shiver. It was chilly enough to merit a long-sleeved shirt and jacket today, and now she's stripped out of both. Chloe's eyelids flutter, and Elena winces. She doesn't know much about concussions or head injuries in general, but she's pretty sure that passing out is bad. “Hey, don't fall asleep,” she says, lightly shaking Chloe's shoulder. “You gotta help me figure out how we're gonna make the guys pay for this.”

“Hmm?”

“It's their fault,” Elena says. “They ran across the boards first. Probably knocked 'em loose.”

Chloe manages a weak laugh. “Good point,” she says. “Oughta make 'em use their share of the treasure to replace these clothes.” She gestures at her mud and blood-spattered self.

“I need a new watch now,” Elena says.

“Oh, a watch, I should get one of those,” Chloe says. “Think Victor will spring for something nice?”

“I don't think we're gonna give him a choice.”


	31. Nate and Harry, mourn me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For, uh, me. What, I can prompt myself, don't give me that look.

There's a man chain-smoking at the table to Nate's right. Normally he wouldn't think anything of it, probably wouldn't even notice, but the smoke smells familiar. Reminds him of dim pubs and cheap beer and plans for heists spread out over stained wooden tables. Harry used to smoke the same brand, back before he quit, back before... well, before a lot of things. Nate frowns, his hands curling into fists on his knees.

He doesn't want to be grieving for Harry Flynn.

The bastard stabbed him in the back, tried to kill him multiple times, and came horrifyingly close to killing Elena in a last-ditch effort at revenge. Flynn was a traitorous, vicious scumbag, and Nate tells himself he should be glad the man's dead.

And yet... he kinda misses him.

Not who he was at the end, but the man who was his friend. Okay, yeah, somewhere in there Harry started to hate him, but he can't believe that the friendship was always an act. They worked together on plenty of heists, met up for beers if they were in the same city, tipped each other off about jobs they couldn't take. Hell, up until Istanbul, Harry had been one of the more trustworthy partners-in-crime Nate had worked with. In their line of work, reliable friends are few and far between, and it still hurts that Harry turned out to be neither.

It bothers him, sort of, that he doesn't know when or why Harry started hating him. It means he doesn't know how long the friendship was faked, when Harry decided to betray him. Or why he decided to. Nate's not sure if it was because of the job or Chloe or... or hell, maybe it was just him. But he'll never know, and he can't stop wondering.

“Kid, are you even listenin' to me?”

Nate drags his gaze up off the table and over to Sully. “Hangin' on every word,” he replies, forcing a grin onto his face. Harry made his choices, and they'd gotten him killed. Nate would just have to start moving on.


	32. Harry and Lazarevic, making an offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For thatsalotofmyblood.

Harry’s eyebrows shoot up when he sees the target. “Istanbul Palace Museum,” he says. “That’s, ah, quite the undertaking.”

Lazarevic continues to stare at him levelly from the other side of the table. “You assured me you could obtain what I required, Mr. Flynn.”

Harry shakes his head and picks up the pamphlet. “We can, definitely, we can absolutely get this,” utterly worthless oil lamp, “it just might not, you know, be from _here_.”

Lazarevic’s expression changes ever so slightly, and Harry can just feel his chances of walking out of here alive shrinking. He tries not to obviously count the number of weapons strapped to the warlord. “The piece will be at the museum for almost five months,” Lazarevic says. “Do you expect me to wait until next year?”

Any other client, and Harry would have said yes. But, well, Lazarevic isn’t exactly the sort of person you argue with. “I’m not, I’m not saying that, I just—”

“Then what are you saying?” Lazarevic crosses one arm over his chest, his hand settling within inches of his pistol.

Shit. Okay, think fast. He and Chloe can’t crack the museum on their own, it’d be suicide. Oliver tried to break in four years ago, took a bullet to the skull before he even made it past the courtyard, and then Anastasia got busted with her hands on the relics. Her partner is still rotting in prison. The only person he knew who might stand a chance was… oh, son of a bitch. There had to be someone else. Anyone but that arrogant, cocksure, obnoxious bastard who called himself Harry’s friend.

There’s no one else. No one else has made it out of the Istanbul Palace alive and with the loot, because no one else is as good as him. Goddammit.

“I’m saying,” Harry begins, “that we might need some outside help.” Lazarevic raises an eyebrow, a silent demand to continue. “His name’s Nathan Drake,” Harry says, and manages not to spit the name. “He’s the only person who’s gotten out of this museum successfully in the last two decades.”

Lazarevic scowls. “And so I have to pay another thief to acquire one, simple object.”

Harry smiles, a plan slowly forming in the back of his mind. “Not necessarily.”


	33. Harry and Nate, drunk texts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribbly-kimbree: Harry drunk texts/calls Nate at some obscure hour of the morning.

Harry Flynn: drake

_Message received: 2:27 a.m._

 

Harry Flynn: drake

_Message received: 2:29 a.m._

 

Harry Flynn: andser yir fuckng phpne

_Message received: 2:32 a.m._

 

Nathan Drake: wtf flynn its 2:30 am here the hell do you want

_Message sent: 2:34 a.m._

 

Harry Flynn: 1:30 herw. In chicsgp.

_Message received: 2:35 a.m._

 

Nathan Drake: is that supposed to be chicago?

_Message sent: 2:36 a.m._

 

Harry Flynn: y

_Message received: 2:37 a.m._

 

Nathan Drake: turning off the phone, leave me alone now

_Message sent: 2:38 a.m._

 

Harry Flynn: no yoyre not

_Message received: 2:39 a.m._

 

Harry Flynn: drake

_Message received: 2:42 a.m._

 

Harry Flynn: drake you cankt kst ignore me

_Message received: 2:43 a.m._

 

Harry Flynn: finf callung ypu now

_Message received: 2:46 a.m._

 

Nate ignored the insistent buzzing of his phone on the nightstand for as long as he could, which, given the fact that it was quarter-to-fucking-three a.m., Jesus, wasn't very long. He rolled over, grabbed the phone, and shoved it to his ear with a little more force than was wise. “Ow,” he groaned. “The fuck do you want, Harry?”

“Knew you hadn't turned it off,” Harry slurred triumphantly.

Nate groaned again and rolled over to halfway bury his face in his pillow. “Jesus, are you drunk?”

“Yeah. 'm in Chicago.”

He could just hang up. He could hang up, turn off his phone, and go back to sleep. But then he'd have to listen to all nineteen of Harry's drunken voicemails, because if he just deleted them all he'd miss the one important one from Sully or somebody buried in there. Plus he'd forget to turn his phone back on and then people would yell at him. “Great,” Nate muttered.

“Had a job with some blokes up on the North Shore. Needed an entryman.” Harry sounded a bit smug, and Nate rolled his eyes. He hadn't been to Chicago for a few years, but he remembered the layout well enough to not be impressed.

“You flew in from London to knock over some suburbs?” Nate asked. “Sounds real rewarding. What's next, carjacking? Gonna rob a gas station?”

“Fuck you, Drake,” Harry said without much venom. “It paid well.”

“Uh-huh.” Nate sighed and glanced over at the alarm on his nightstand. Almost three. Awesome. “So why did you call me?”

“Went to this bar after the job,” Harry said. “Came outside for a smoke and got bored.”

Nate rolled his eyes. “I thought you were quitting.”

“Not while I'm drinking, I'm not.” Nate heard the faint click of a lighter, followed by a deep breath that signaled Harry taking a drag on his cigarette. “By the way, you ever had malort?”

“Never heard of it.”

Harry cackled, there was no other word for it. “Oh, great, I'll buy you a shot next time we're in Chicago.”

Nate narrowed his eyes at the ceiling. That sounded suspicious. “Right. Look, not that this hasn't been a great chat, but I want to go back to sleep.”

“Suit yourself, mate,” Harry replied and took another drag on his cigarette. “Want I should call you if I pick up any more work in the States?”

Nate scoffed. “Pretty sure I'm outta your league now, Flynn. Housebreaking's a little small-time for me.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Uh-huh. Bye, Flynn.” Nate hung up the phone, then, after a moment, set the ringer to silent. He'd suck it up and deal with the drunk voicemails in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've never heard of malort, it is best explained this way: that Harry is trying to get Nate to drink it is an early warning sign that he is not actually Nate's friend and may in fact be a horrible human being. It is awful, awful stuff.


	34. Harry and Nate, that one time in...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For cypheroftyr: Harry and Nate, that one time in (fill in the location).

They've been at the bar for fifteen minutes, and Nate hasn't been able to stop laughing almost since he sat down. Harry hasn't even lit up his first cigarette of the evening, he's just got his head buried in his arms on the table, shoulders shaking with laughter. 

“Oh, Christ, mate, I wish we'd gotten a picture of his face,” Harry chokes out. He pushes himself upright, leaning his forehead against his hand. 

Nate starts to reach for his beer, but at Harry's words, he starts laughing again. “I don't know if I need it,” he says. “I think that expression is going to be burned into my brain for the rest of my life.”

Harry takes a couple deep breaths to calm himself. “I don't know what he was expecting,” he says and pulls a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. “He asked us to swipe a fertility idol. I mean, I don't know what he thought it was gonna look like, but...”

Nate starts giggling helplessly. “At least he paid us,” he manages. “Even if it wasn't what he was, ah, expecting.”

“Amen to that,” Harry says around the cigarette. He lights it and takes a long drag, while Nate weakly pulls his beer closer. Harry blows a stream of smoke across the table, then holds the cigarette aside and raises his glass. “To Genoa,” he says, “for giving me memories that I will treasure forever.”

Nate laughs and clinks his glass against Harry's. “I'll drink to that.”


	35. Sully and Chloe, waste of a good suit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> beltsquid: As I am overcome by Sully feels at the moment, requesting fluffy Sully fic with Chloe, Elena, or Charlie. Challenge: the focus of conversation cannot be about Nate.

Nate and Charlie go bounding off to one of the many, many stacks of books scattered around Charlie's loft. Sully leans back in his chair and stretches his legs out in front of him with a faint groan. Talbot's thugs hadn't exactly pulled their punches back there.

Chloe grabs Charlie's abandoned stool and perches on it with her legs crossed at the knee. “Seems like a waste of a perfectly good suit,” she comments, nodding at Sully.

He looks down at the fake bloodstain on his stomach and shrugs. “Eh, I've done worse to far nicer clothes,” he says. “I ever tell you about the time I conned an Egyptian general into paying triple his original price for some fake relics? You should have _seen_ the tuxedo. Oil stains do not come out.”

Chloe presses her lips together, trying to stifle a laugh, and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Am I going to need to call a lawyer after hearing this story?” she asks.

“Nah, I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations has passed,” Sully replies. “This was twenty-five, thirty years ago. I don't think they can charge me.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Of course, the general might still hold a grudge. I did seduce his wife while I was there.”

Chloe gives up the fight against her laughter. “Of _course_ you did,” she says. “Victor, you have no shame.”

“None whatsoever,” he agrees with a grin.


	36. Sully and bby!Nate, happy birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For totallynotamage.

Sully glances up from his coffee when the door between his and Nate's adjoining hotel rooms swings open. He takes a large drink to hide a smirk; Nate's still half-asleep, his hair sticking up every which way, and he shuffles over to the coffee pot with sleepy determination. “Morning, sunshine,” Sully drawls.

Nate mumbles something and pours himself a mug of coffee. He picks up the whole box of sugar packets and carries it back with him to the small table, then flops down in the chair across from Sully. Sully waits patiently while Nate adds a cavity-inducing amount of sugar to his coffee and lets him take the first sip before picking up a brown paper bag off the floor and setting it on the table in front of Nate.

Nate blinks at it, then glances up at Sully. “What's this?”

Sully shrugs. It's been almost a year since he picked the kid up in Cartagena, and while he's pretty sure Nate's not going to panic and bolt, he's still a bit cautious. Nate can be tough to handle somedays, worse than most fifteen-year-olds. Well. Sixteen, now. “It's your birthday, isn't it?”

“Yeah...” Nate sounds a little suspicious, and Sully inwardly sighs. Outwardly, he just raises his eyebrows, nods at the bag, and takes a sip of coffee.

Nate eyes the bag for a moment, then sets down his mug and pulls the bag onto his lap so he can see inside. He blinks again, a lot, then reaches in and pulls out a trio of paperbacks. History books, some things on Queen Elizabeth and Dee and Drake, the kind of stuff the kid can't seem to get enough of. Sully watches as Nate turns the books over to read the titles, smiles himself at the faint grin that flickers across Nate's face. Then he sets them down and reaches back into the bag to pull out the last item. Another book, though it's hardcover and blank inside. Sully had been... involved with an artist some years ago, and she'd sworn by that brand of sketchbooks. 

Nate thumbs the sketchbook open, rubs a page between his finger and thumb, then clears his throat. “Thanks,” he says, quietly, keeping his eyes on the table.

Sully wonders how long it's been since someone gave the kid a birthday present, then shakes his head. “Something to keep you entertained on the plane once we're done here,” he says. Neither of them do well with Emotional Moments, and if he doesn't change the subject, things will get unbearably awkward. “C'mon. Finish your coffee and shower. We've got a manor to case.”

Nate chuckles and sets the sketchbook down. “Right.”


	37. Chloe and Charlie, guitar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> starshone-storm: Charlie and Chloe, the guitar in his flat

“So,” Chloe asks, “do you play?”

Charlie glances up from his book and raises an eyebrow. “You're gonna have to be more specific, darling,” he says dryly.

Chloe laughs and lets her head fall back so she's staring at his loft upside-down again. She's sprawled out on one of the leather chairs, her legs hooked over one arm and her head over the other. “Guitar,” she says, gesturing at the instrument in question. “Do you play? Or did you just learn seventeen to impress girls and have since forgotten every chord?”

He chuckles. “That sounded bitter,” he comments.

Chloe waves a hand in the air. “It's why I never assume a man can actually play guitar,” she explains. “It's always, 'oh, I used to,' and that's just disappointing.”

“Well, I do still play,” Charlie says.

Chloe smiles at the ceiling. “Good to know.”

There's a lengthy pause. “You're not going to ask me to prove it?” Charlie asks.

Chloe rolls her head to the side to look at him and shrugs. “Nah,” she says. “I know you'll play for me when you want.”

Charlie laughs again, shakes his head and goes back to his book. Chloe goes back to staring at the ceiling and wonders if he knows how to sing, too. She doesn't ask, though. She'll find out eventually.


	38. Nate and Sully, car accident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribbly-kimbree: Bby!(or older teen-ish idk)Nate goes off driving late one night and wrecks the car somehow. Sully to the rescue. GO. 
> 
> My headcanon for this fic: Sully did something similar when he was a kid and his father flipped out in a bad way, so he is very very consciously NOT freaking out on Nate here. He’s probably a lot more pissed than he’s letting on, but he’s gonna try not to let Nate see that.

Nate glances around the very dark, very empty gas station lot as the phone rings. Empty's good. He can work with empty. Empty means no one is going to try to mug him at almost one in the morning while he's stranded out here, Christ, could this night get any worse?

“Hello?” Sully rasps sleepily, and Nate straightens up, clutching the payphone in one hand.

“Uh, Sully. Hi.” He cringes. “Um.” Oh, God, Sully's gonna kill him, or kick him out. Probably kick him out. Shit.

Sully sighs. “Are you in jail, kid?”

“What? No.” Jail might be easier, actually. Nate rubs the back of his neck and sighs. “I, uh. I kindofwreckedthetruck.”

Sully doesn't reply right away, and Nate braces himself for the inevitable. “What?” Sully finally says.

Oh. Great. “You said I could take the truck out, since I got my license, and I wanted to go out to the pier, and I kind of wrecked the truck.”

“Oh, shit, kid,” Sully mutters, and Nate cringes again. “You okay?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine.” Kind of sore and bruised and _maybe_ a little dizzy, but he's fine.

“Good.” Sully sounds more awake now. “Where are you at?”

Nate gives him the cross-streets near the gas station. “Had to walk about half a mile to get here, though,” he says. “The truck's... further down.”

“You didn't hit anybody, did you?” 

“No. Just... the guardrail.” More accurately, he sort of went _through_ the guardrail and into a ditch.

Sully heaves a sigh. “So when you say 'kind of wrecked...'”

“I'm sorry,” Nate blurts out. “I'll pay you back, I just-- shit, I'm sorry.” He swallows hard, shoulders still tense, waiting for the outburst.

“You-- we'll worry about that later,” Sully says. “Let me see how bad it is. Can dock your share of the pay for a while if I have to. Just... sit tight, I gotta get a cab, should be there in about twenty.”

Nate nods. “Okay. Bye.”

“See you in a bit.”

Nate hangs up the phone and rakes a hand through his hair. Well. That went better than expected. He still feels like shit, though. He jams his hands in his pockets and trudges off towards the twenty-four hour convenience store to wait. Maybe they'll give him some ice for the bruises.


	39. Young!Sully and Baby!Nate, at the park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> e-cono asked for young!Sully and baby!Nate fluff at a park/playground

“Sully, what're we doing here?”

Sully sighs and rolls his eyes. God, Nate's whiny today. “I'm meetin' a contact, kid,” he says. They're in a small park in a suburb just outside Boston. The whole thing is entirely too cloak-and-dagger for Sully's tastes. Meet in a park, come alone, blah blah blah. Sully's surprised there wasn't a secret codeword or something.

The instructions did say 'come alone,' so he needs to send Nate off somewhere. Sully glances around and spots a mostly empty playground on the other side of the path. “Mind waiting for me over there?” he asks. Doesn't order. Nate doesn't respond well to orders unless they're being shot at.

Nate follows his gaze and makes a face. “Seriously, Sully? I'm not a kid.”

Yeah, you are, Sully thinks, but he knows better than to say it out loud. “Just go sit on the swings or something, will ya?” he says, lightly cuffing Nate's shoulder. “The guy I'm meeting with is real jumpy. I don't wanna surprise him.”

Nate snorts. “Yeah, 'cause I'm soooo scary.”

“You're a terror, all right.” Sully reaches out to ruffle Nate's hair; Nate ducks away, laughing, and heads off towards the swings. Sully watches him walk away, then checks his watch. Ten minutes to get to the meeting. He shoves his hands in his pockets and walks off.

The contact's early, no surprise there, and Sully has a nice chat about the market for Mexican antiquities this time of year. He leaves almost a thousand dollars poorer, but he's got a few maps of an abandoned temple in his pocket. If this all goes well, he'll make that thousand back tenfold. Sully heads back to the playground, hoping that Nate hasn't wandered off somewhere.

He hearslaughter first, and he rounds the bend in the path to see Nate on one of the swings. He's gotten pretty high up, unlike the two younger kids on the swings next to him. Nate says something and laughs, then jumps off the swing and lands hard on the ground. He staggers forward a step, wincing, and Sully rolls his eyes. Nate can jump off a building without blinking, but he can't manage swings.

“Hang on, here,” Nate says as Sully gets closer. Nate runs back around behind the smaller of the two kids, a girl who looks maybe six or seven, and starts pushing her. She shrieks with laughter, and Nate ducks to the side to give the other kid, maybe her older brother, a helping push. Sully leans back against a tree and watches, not wanting to ruin this moment. It's pretty damn rare to see Nate actually acting like the kid he is.

“There you go!” The other two kids are swinging pretty high, and Nate darts back to his swing to join them. He spots Sully and stops with his hand on the chain, and before Sully can wave him off, tell him it's okay, he's turning back to the other two. “I gotta go now. Bye!”

“Bye!” they chorus at him.

“We didn't have to leave yet,” Sully says as Nate hurries over.

Nate shrugs, looking almost embarrassed, shoulders hunched and shoes scuffing the dirt. “Eh, whatever. How'd the meeting go?”

Sully manages to bite back a sigh. And that glimpse of the kid Nate could have been-- should have been, maybe-- is gone. He can't help but wonder, sometimes, if this is what's really best for Nate, the traveling and theft and everything. Then again, he sort of doubts that Nate would be any better with a “normal” life, not after everything he's been through. “Good,” Sully says and starts down the path. “We're goin' back to Mexico.”

“Cool.” Nate kicks a rock down the path. “Can we get ice cream?”

Sully blinks at him. Okay, so maybe the glimpse wasn't as short-lived as he'd thought. “Sure,” he says. “Your treat, though, buying those maps cleaned me out.”


	40. Nate and Elena, unbind me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an anonymous prompter on tumblr.

“How do you get yourself into these situations?” Elena whispers from where she’s crouched behind him.

“Horrible luck,” Nate whispers back, his eyes locked on the door of his cell.

Elena snorts, and while he feels a tug on his wrists, there doesn’t seem to be any less duct tape holding them together. “I feel like I should start charging for this,” Elena continues. “I could probably retire after a year with how often I have to rescue you.”

Nate sighs. “Less plotting, more cutting the tape,” he mutters.

“I’m working on it,” Elena says. “But unless you want me to stab you in the wrist I need to be careful here.”

Elsewhere in the ruins, a door slams open, and Nate can hear someone shouting in… Russian, maybe? “Rather be stabbed in the wrist than both of us shot,” Nate says. “Just—”

“Fine, hold still,” Elena snaps, then Nate feels the tip of the knife scrape across his skin as she slices through the tape.

“Ow ow ow—”

“You’re the one who told me to hurry,” Elena hisses and yanks the knife up through the last of the tape. Nate swings his arms around in front of him and tears the duct tape off his arms, muttering more pained curses under his breath. “Come on!” Elena gestures at the hole in the ceiling overhead, too high for either of them to each on their own. But he can boost Elena up, and if he grabs her hand, he can get out.

Probably.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Nate replies. He crouches down so she can climb up on his shoulders. “So how much are you planning to charge per rescue?”

“Buy me dinner and I’ll call it even.”


	41. Talbot and Charlie, fight me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an anonymous prompter on tumblr.

The goal was to get Talbot’s attention— the man’s hiring muscle for the impending meeting, and among Charlie’s many talents is the ability to hit people really hard in the head. Problem is that when the (sort of staged) fight broke out, Charlie ended up accidentally hitting Talbot.

With a chair.

At least it was thrown, as opposed to smashing him over the head with it. Charlie’s hired thugs set about herding the remaining combatants out the door, and Charlie casually ends up in Talbot’s corner of the room. The man’s picking himself up off the floor with a look of pained disgust, brushing off his clothes. “Sorry ‘bout that, mate,” Charlie says, offering him a hand up. “My boys can get a bit enthusiastic when they’re breakin’ up a fight.”

“I noticed,” Talbot replies dryly. He glances around the bar and attempts to smooth his hair back into place. “These men, they work for you?”

“More or less.” For tonight, anyway, and for whatever nights Charlie needs them to show up and look menacing at his command. It’s not cheap, but Nate’s apparently willing to throw quite a lot of money at finding this Marlowe woman.

Talbot nods slowly. “If you’re interested in paying work,” he says, “I might have a proposition for you.” He casts another significant look around the bar. “If you’d be willing to talk someplace a bit quieter.”

Charlie grins and gestures at the door. “You mention pay an’ I’m all ears,” he says. “Lead on.” Okay, so, that went better than expected. Maybe he should try hitting prospective employers with furniture more often.


	42. Nate/Elena, unheard confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For vespidaequeen.

Tenzin's home is empty and quiet, though if Nate listens hard enough, he can hear Elena breathing. He needs to hear it, needs the assurance that she's alive. He's sitting on the floor by the bed, holding her right hand in both of his. He tries to ignore the dried blood under her nails. “I feel like I should say something,” he half-whispers. She's unconscious still, so there's no chance of a reply. No risk of her hearing him, either.

He sighs and shakes his head. “I-I'm sorry,” he says. “I should've...” Should have let her go, but the thought leaves him choked with dread. He should have, though. Let her go or left her behind, made sure she was safe. It's his fault she was in Shambhala in the first place. His fault she nearly died.

A shudder runs through him, and he tightens his hold on her hand. “'lena, you can't-- I-I'm not--” He can't get the rest of the words out. Nate shakes his head. “Don't leave me, okay? Just-- I need you to...”

If this was a movie, Elena would smile and open her eyes, reveal that she heard everything, tell him... tell him something that will make it all okay. But it's not, and she doesn't wake up. Doesn't do anything, except keep breathing. Nate leans his head against the side of the mattress. That's enough for now.

 


	43. Harry/Chloe, before it all went wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid, as an "apology" for hurting her with other Harry/Chloe feels.

They’ve claimed the corner table in the back of the bar, the only one they’ll both feel comfortable at. They can both sit with their backs to the wall, and between the two of them, they’ve got a view of the whole bar. It requires some trust, but, hell, if nothing else, Chloe can count on Harry to tell her if someone’s coming up behind her with a gun. Or a pool cue, again. That bar brawl in Perth had been nasty.

Right now, though, things are calm. It’s early enough in the evening that the bar’s still pretty quiet, no screaming crowds and music cranked up enough to drown them out. They’ll leave once it starts getting loud, but the food’s good, the beer’s cheap, and it’s mere minutes from the park where they’re meeting their contact. Better to conduct shady negotiations on a full stomach, in Chloe’s opinion.

She sets her glass down on the table and slouches in her chair a bit. Harry’s staring off into the middle distance, spinning his lighter around in his hand. “I thought you quit,” Chloe says.

“I did.” Harry glances at her and smirks, does some complicated showy spin that sparks the lighter for a second. “Unless I’m drinking. Or I’m bored. Or I’ve just gotten laid.”

He grins at her, and Chloe just rolls her eyes. “You smoke in my bed, I’m kicking your ass out,” she says. “And keeping your pants.”

Harry blinks and gives her a quick once-over. “They wouldn’t even fit you.”

She laughs and swings her foot up onto his chair, wedging it in between his leg and the wall. Harry makes a face and half-heartedly nudges her away. Chloe responds by relocating her foot to between his legs. Harry raises an eyebrow. “I can’t tell if that’s a threat or something more fun.”

“I like to keep my options open.”

He snorts, smirking, and goes back to playing with his lighter. They sit in comfortable silence, Chloe sipping her beer and Harry courting burned fingers, until the bartender comes over with two plates of greasy, fried food. Chloe puts both feet back on the ground and sits up. “So,” she says, reaching across the table for ketchup, “find out anything else about this job, other than smash-and-grab?”

Harry shrugs. “Client’s some rich collector,” he says around a mouthful of cheeseburger. “Albanian or Serbian or something. We’re meeting with his ‘representative’ tonight, figure out if we actually get to meet the man himself.”

“Great,” Chloe says dryly.

“Honestly, he sounds like he’s a few screws loose,” Harry continues. “But he’s willing to pay us lots of money to steal something. How could we say no?”

Chloe grins and shrugs one shoulder. “How indeed?”


	44. Nate/Elena, soaking wet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> flutiebear: apodyopis (the act of mentally undressing someone), Nate/Elena, circa UC1

“I hate jetskis,” Nate declares as soon as he’s got both feet on the ground. The jetski that carried them upriver to the monastery begins drifting off, carried downstream by the current.

Elena wrings out her hair and watches the jetski go. She’s pretty sure she should be a little more upset or concerned about their only ride floating away, but, hell, it was an awful trip getting up here. They’ll figure out something.

Nate rakes a hand through his soaked hair and sighs. “Okay, so, the monastery should be just up there,” he mutters, more to himself than to her it seems, and frowns at the stairs leading up into the hills. Elena glances at him sideways while he’s distracted. They’re both drenched, and as a result, Nate’s clothes are clinging in some very interesting ways. There’s still plenty left to the imagination, though, and Elena idly wonders if it’s too soon for a ‘let’s get you out of those wet things’ line. She’s been watching him climb stuff all day, and the idea of peeling that shirt off of him is quite appealing.

“Elena?” Nate asks, in a tone that indicates he’s said her name a couple times already.

Elena blinks and glances up to his face. “Yeah?”

“You ready to keep moving?” he asks.

“Oh. Uh, yeah,” Elena says, shaking her head to clear it. She quickly pulls her hair back into a messy bun. “Let’s go.”

Nate gives her an odd look, then shrugs and heads for the stairs. Elena smirks as she falls in step behind him. At least the view’s still decent from back here.


	45. Nate/Elena, cameras (mildly NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> historymiss: grapholagnia (the urge to stare at obscene pictures), Nate and Elena.

Elena likes her cameras. Nate’s never been as fond of them; the first time he saw her almost die, she had a camera in her hand. Later experiences haven’t been quite as bad, but he still doesn’t really like them. If she needs it for work, fine, but he’d been a little put out when he’d found a camera packed in her bag for their honeymoon.

Given the current circumstances, though, Nate might be willing to revise his opinion.

“Y’know,” he says, struggling to sound casual and failing miserably, “doesn’t seem fair that these are all of _me_.”

Elena laughs and shifts position, drawing a low groan out of him. “You can barely talk,” she replies, and Nate’s only consolation is that she sounds just as breathless as him, “what makes you think you can work a camera?” She holds the camera aside so nothing interferes with the smug grin she’s giving him. “I’ve gotta have something to keep me occupied when my husband disappears into the jungle for two weeks at a time.”


	46. Nate/Elena, horribly lost (again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> beltsquid: Nate and Elena, brontide (the low rumble of distant thunder)

It’s a well-known fact that Nathan Drake is terrible at navigating. Looking at the wrong map, holding the map upside down, forgetting which way is north: his history of getting spectacularly turned around isn’t a secret.

Which is why Elena’s still not sure why she agreed to let him take the lead on this expedition through a dense Austrian forest. Such an obviously terrible decision, and yet. Here they are. The two of them stand side-by-side in a clearing and peer at the map that Nate’s holding. “I wouldn’t say we’re lost,” Elena says, knowingly clinging to denial as a coping mechanism.

“Right,” Nate replies dryly. “We just don’t know where we are.”

“We’re hereish,” she says and draws a circle on the map with her finger.

Nate holds the map up so he can read the scale. “That’s, like, a five-mile square area.”

Elena sighs. “Okay. We’re lost.”

Nate shakes his head and starts to fold up the largely useless map. “Well, it could always be worse,” he says, and as if on cue, thunder rumbles in the distance.

Elena stares at him. “How do you _do_ that?”

“Oh, shut up,” he mutters. “C’mon, we need to find the car before the rain starts.”

Elena’s more than a little surprised when it doesn’t start pouring immediately. The thunder just rumbles again, still far away but getting closer. “Right. I think we need to go west, then.”

It’s not really a surprise to either of them when they end up waiting out the storm in a cave.


	47. Nate/Elena, "woman-in-every-port type"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> scribbly-kimbree: Sphallolalia (flirtatious talk that leads nowhere), Nate/Elena

“So,” Nate asks as he and Elena make their way through the ruins, “what makes you think I'd be the 'woman-in-every-port' type?”

Elena glances at him sideways and smirks. “Isn't that how it's supposed to work?” she teases. “The handsome, charming treasure hunter who travels the world always has some old flame waiting for him in every city.” Nate arches an eyebrow at her, and she shrugs. “That's how it goes in the movies, anyway.”

He snorts. “Yeah, well, the movies aren't always accurate.” Rarely accurate, really. The treasure-hunting life wasn't all explosions and shootouts and daring escapes. Although given the day's events, it probably wasn't the best time to make that argument. A thought occurs to him, and he glances over at Elena. “Wait, you think I'm handsome?” And charming. She'd called him charming, too.

Elena shoots him a look of feigned innocence, but she can't hide the faint blush on her face. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she replies airily.

“Uh-huh,” he says with a grin. “I know what I heard.”

“You're also a liar and egotistical as hell,” Elena points out.

Nate chooses to ignore the criticism, true as it may be. “Ha! You said 'also,' which means you _do_ think I'm handsome!”

Elena turns to face him and opens her mouth to reply, but a hail of bullets thudding into the wall just over their heads cuts her off. They both dive for cover, and Nate makes a mental note to follow up on that. Later, though. Once less people are trying to kill them.


	48. Nate and Elena, an unhappy fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> impalallama: Nate/Elena, Wanweird (an unhappy fate), UC2

Elena’s no stranger to war zones. Hell, four days ago, she was right in the middle of one. So that’s not the problem here. That’s not the reason she’s practically shaking with horror and fear. The difference is that this time, the soldiers storming through the town are here because of her. Her and Nate. The dead bodies in the streets are their fault.

It leaves her almost sick with guilt, but she pushes it down, ignores it, because curling up in a corner and beating herself up doesn’t do any good. Instead she grabs her gun and helps cover the evacuation. The soldiers have a goal, and while they’re willing to steamroll over the village to get to it, there’s no interest in occupation. Horrible as it sounds, the best bet for survival is to just get out of their way and get behind them.

They’ve gotten as many people as they can back around Schaefer’s house. He’s not there, nor is Pema, and Elena has no idea where they’ve gone. It’s barely controlled chaos in the courtyard, and Elena crouches by a pair of panicked girls who can’t find their parents. “ _Do you have other family you can wait with?_ ” she asks. “ _An aunt or uncle?_ ”

One of the girls is crying too hard to answer. The other one mumbles a name that Elena can barely understand. Elena shakes her head, and she’s about to ask for the name again when the door of Schaefer’s house slams open. Nate and Tenzin come running in, guns drawn, both wide-eyed with panic. She tells the girls to wait and runs over to them. Tenzin just wants to know where his daughter is, and she has to tell him she doesn’t know. 

“They went the other way,” she says to Nate. He nods and half-turns in the direction of the fighting; Elena grabs his arm. “Nate, this is our fault,” she says. “We did this.” These people had nothing to do with Lazarevic or Shambhala. It’s the two of them that brought his down on the village.

Nate meets her eyes for a second, and she can tell he’s already thinking the same thing. “Just stay here,” he says, putting his hands on her shoulders for a brief moment. “Keep them safe.”

He runs off after Tenzin to find Pema, and Elena turns back to the girls, because it’s all they can do.


	49. Nate and Sully, that time they got lost in Peru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ash: Nate + Sully, Ultracrepidarian (Of one who speaks or offers opinions on matters beyond their knowledge)

“You sure you know where you're goin', kid?” Sully called as Nate bounded cheerfully through the dense foliage. Nate had been very enthusiastic about these ruins in the jungles of Peru, and since it seemed like such an easy job, Sully had let the kid take the lead on the research.

In retrospect, that might not have been the best idea.

“Of course!” Nate replied. “Shouldn't be too far.”

Sully frowned. “You've been sayin' that for a few miles now,” he said. “D'you have a map?”

Nate stopped walking with an annoyed groan and pulled his journal out of his bag. “I copied it down,” he said. The map they were relying on was in a museum, and thus not exactly available for borrowing. He flipped it open to the right page and held it out to Sully. “It should be just down that hill there.”

Sully took the journal and studied the map. He glanced up at the hill Nate was indicating, then the position of the sun in the sky, then back at the drawing. “Uh. Nate?” he said. “North is _that_ way.”

Nate peered at the map, then his eyes went wide. “Oh, crap.”

“Yeah.” Okay. So, lesson learned. Don't let a fifteen-year-old navigate through the jungle. “C'mon. If we head straight back the way we came, we should make it out all right.” And then they were driving back to the city, and Sully was stealing the goddamn map himself. Their client was paying too much money for him to bail on this job now.


	50. Nate/Elena, almost kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For flutiebear: Nate/Elena UST almost-kiss.

Elena knows that she has not, in fact, always been cold. It just seems that way after spending so many hours trudging through the snow-covered monastery. Her mind keeps wandering to such fantastic dreams as central heating and dry socks and soft blankets. Once they get out of here. They’ll rescue Schaefer and stop Lazarevic and then she can go home. Spending at least a week curled up in her bed under every blanket she owns sounds amazing.

Whether or not she’ll have company remains to be seen.

She shivers and rubs her hands together, while Nate scrambles around the courtyard, digging in the snow for spare clips or grenades. She should be helping him, she knows that, but the mere idea of putting her hands anywhere near the snow actually makes her fingers ache. Still, she glances around the immediate area to see if there’s anything useful just… lying around on a fallen pillar or something.

“Hey,” Nate says, a little out of breath, as he jogs over to her. “Ready to—you okay?”

Elena gives him a quick smile. “Yeah. Just, y’know, freezing.”

He makes a sympathetic sound and holsters his gun, then reaches for her hands, wrapping them up in his in an attempt to warm them. Somehow, his hands _are_ warmer than hers, at least by a little bit. He always ran hot, compared to her. It was annoying, sometimes, when he’d want to cuddle on hot summer nights. Although he could usually find ways to distract her from the heat.

“Better?” Nate asks, his voice low and a bit husky. He’s lightly rubbing his thumbs along the sides of her hands, and Elena suddenly notices how close they’re standing.

“Yeah.” She manages another smile and shifts half a step closer to him, trapping their hands between them.

Nate smiles back and starts to lean towards her—then stops abruptly and looks over his shoulder, his hands falling from hers as he reaches for her gun. “We should keep moving,” he says, scanning the area for something.

Elena sighs, unable and unwilling to mask her disappointment. “Right,” she says and falls in behind him.


	51. Baby!Nate, a couple of strays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid: babby Nate feeds a stray cat.

There’s a bunch of stray cats that hang around in the alley behind the orphanage. Probably ‘cause the door to the kitchen is right there. Plenty of food. Nate spends a lot of time in the kitchen, both voluntarily or not. Sometimes he sneaks in there to swipe extra food; more often, he’s being punished with extra chores. Right now, it’s the latter. Or it’s _supposed_ to be the latter. He was told to take out the garbage, which he did, but once he’d closed the lid on the dumpster he just… climbed on top of it, then scaled the wall up to the roof.

Nate’s learned that the best way to avoid unpleasant chores is to act out while doing them. Sure, this means he’ll probably be stuck helping out with dishes for the next two weeks straight, but it’s better than hauling trash around. And it’s way easier to sneak food if he’s in the kitchen already.

He sighs and pulls a hunk of cheese out of his pocket. It’s their own fault, really, he muses as he unwraps the parchment paper. If they gave him enough food at meals in the first place, then he wouldn’t always be hungry.

There’s a noise to his left, and Nate jumps, almost loses his precarious balance on the roof. He manages to recover without dropping his snack, luckily. He frowns as the source of the noise trots along the gutter towards him: a scrawny, half-grown black and white cat. The strays are usually pretty mean, snarling and hissing if he gets too close. This one seems okay, though. It stops a few feet away from Nate and stares at him.

“What’re you doing up here?” Nate asks after staring back for a while. The cat just keeps staring. Nate cautiously holds one hand out to the cat, well aware he’s risking scratches. The cat skitters a step back, then slowly stretches its neck out and sniffs. Nate laughs when the cat starts licking crumbs of cheese off his fingers.

“Here,” Nate says, taking his hand back and breaking off a chunk of cheese. He crumbles it up a bit, then sets it down in front of the cat. The cat immediately scarfs it down, and Nate takes advantage of its distraction to gently pet it. “You’re pretty friendly,” Nate says when the cat headbutts his knuckles. He wonders if the cat used to belong to someone. Maybe it ran away.

Maybe it got left.

Nate sighs and breaks off two more pieces of cheese, one for himself and one for the cat. He’ll have to go back inside eventually, get yelled at and finish his chores and do his homework. And there’s no way he can keep a cat. But for right now, he can split his snack and watch the sunset. He’ll climb back down later.


	52. Nate/Elena, pets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree: Nate and Elena muse about getting a pet.

“Oh, a puppy!” Elena lets go of Nate’s hand and practically bounces over to a tree, where a dog has been left tied up while its owner is in the store.

Nate sighs and rolls his eyes. “It’s a dog,” he says. “Not a puppy.” A large, full-grown dog that currently has its paws on Elena’s legs as she bends down to scratch it between the ears. Nate stays a good four feet back and tries not to look too impatient. They’re not really in a rush, but he’d kind of like to get to dinner soon. He’s hungry. He gives her a full minute, but when Elena doesn’t seem to be leaving the dog on her own, Nate takes a (small) step forward and waves at her. “Elena, c’mon,” he says, holding out his hand.

“All right, all right.” She gives the dog one last scratch then comes back over, a wistful smile on her face. “I miss having a dog.”

Nate glances at her sideways. “Did you want to get one?”

Elena laughs and shakes her head. “Oh, no,” she says. “I travel way too much for a pet. Besides, it’d make you miserable.”

It really, really would. “If you’re sure…”

“I am.” Elena lightly bumps her head against his shoulder. “I like dogs, but not so much that it’s worth you being unhappy every time you’re at home.”

He grins at that. “Okay.”

“That being said, you’re just gonna have to put up with me saying hello to especially cute dogs,” Elena tells him.

“Can you wait until after we’ve had dinner?”


	53. Nate and Sully, journals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree: Nate for some reason left his journal lying around, and Sully flips through it.

“There has to be another way out of here,” Nate says, pacing back and forth in the sinkhole. Or cave. Sully’s not sure what to call it—they got here via some other caves, but this cavern is open to the sky. Unfortunately for them, it’s easily fifty feet to the surface, and after the passage collapsed behind them, they’re sort of stuck.

“Okay,” Nate says, and Sully looks down from the hole in the ceiling. Nate starts emptying his pockets and pulls off his ring. “I’m gonna see where this goes,” he gestures at the underground river behind them, one that disappears around a bend and into darkness all too quickly, “and if there’s a way out, I’ll come back and get you.”

“All right,” Sully agrees. “Be careful, kid.”

Nate grins. “Always am!” he says, then wades into the water. “Oh, shit, that’s cold, agh…”

Sully watches until Nate swims out of sight, then sighs and eases himself down onto the boulder next to Nate’s things. Sully picks up Nate’s journal and flips it open. Nate’s been scribbling in it since they entered the caves. Maybe there’s a map or something. Could help them get out of here faster.

He doesn’t find a map. Instead he finds plane tickets, torn-out fragments of brochures, business cards, phone numbers and e-mail addresses and notes scribbled down wherever there’s room. There’s a recent photograph of himself and Nate stapled to one page; Sully can’t quite remember where it’s from, but Nate’s scrawled in a caption. _Lima 2008,_ it reads in his messy hand. Nate had been in a good mood at the end of the trip, and he’d managed to convince a tourist with an old Polaroid camera to take the picture for them. Sully huffs out a breath and shakes his head. He had no idea Nate kept all this stuff.

Most of the journal is filled with sketches, though. Nate’s had this one across a couple adventures now, and the pages are covered in drawings of ruins and relics and statues and people. There’s an almost cartoonish picture of Sully arguing with a guard, apparently about moustaches, going by the speech bubbles he’s doodled in. Another page has a detailed portrait of their guide from their last trip into the jungle, and a pair of pages near the back are covered in rough, incomplete sketches of Elena. Similar poses and expressions, almost like he was practicing.

Sully smiles faintly, then closes the journal and sets it back where he found it. He’s never been an especially sentimental man, but it’s obvious that Nate wants to hold onto more relics than just the ones they’re hired to find. He’s kept journals like this for years, Sully knows, and he keeps all of them in stacks around his apartment. Sully had never realized what Nate was holding onto, though.

A little while later, Nate splashes out of the water, drenched to the skin and breathless. “Not getting out that way,” he says. “I think we’re gonna have to climb out.”

Fantastic. “Let’s wait until you’ve dried out some,” Sully says. “Don’t need you falling and breaking your damn neck ‘cause your shoes were slippery.”

“Good idea.”


	54. Nate and Sully, first solo job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree: the first time youngish Nate takes a job by himself.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“’Course I’m sure.”

“The pay’s not great, but I mean, if you want in, I could see--”

“Kid. It’s fine. Go off to—where are you going again?”

“Belarus.”

“Go off to Belarus and find this castle your client thinks is there.”

“Okay.”

“He, uh, he seem like the type to take it badly if you _don’t_ find the castle?”

“Sully, it’ll be fine.”

“Maybe call him and tell him if you don’t find it. That’s not the sort of news to deliver face-to-face.”

“ _Sully._ ”

“I’m just saying!”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“Nothing! Just, y’know, be careful out there.”

“I always am!”

“And call me if you get into trouble.”

“Oh, for god’s sake—I’m twenty, I’m not a kid anymore! I can handle this!”

“All right, all right, forget I said anything. You better get going, don’t want to miss your flight.”

“Yeah. …hey, Sully?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“See ya when you get back, kid.”


	55. Nate and Sully, broken ankle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for scribblykimbree on tumblr.

“This is your fault, you know,” Sully grumbles as he limps his way over to the couch.

Nate rolls his eyes. “How is _your_ broken ankle _my_ fault?” he asks, setting Sully’s beer down on the coffee table within easy reach. Technically, Sully’s not supposed to be drinking, what with the prescribed painkillers, but he’d glowered at the bottle of pills and refused to take any. Nate couldn’t blame him—he didn’t like the way painkillers made his head feel all fuzzy, either.

“If you’d been more careful crossing the bridge—”

“I was being careful!” Nate protests and drops down on the other end of the couch. “That’s why I was hurrying, so that it wouldn’t collapse under us.”

Sully snorts and carefully stretches his leg out in front of him. “Well, it didn’t,” he says, settling into the couch. “Just collapsed under _me_.”

Nate sighs and takes a sip of his beer. “Maybe Elena’s right,” he says. “I should just stay off bridges altogether.”

“How many collapsed bridges are you up to now?”

“With her or overall?”

Sully blinks at him for a second, then shakes his head. “Never mind,” he mutters and picks up his beer. “I don’t think I want to know.” He takes a drink of his own, then frowns and glances sideways at Nate. “You sure you should be drinking that?” he asks. “You still gotta drive me home.”

Nate snorts. “Who said I’m driving you back home?” he asks. Nate had driven them straight back to his and Elena’s house after he and Sully had landed at the airport. Their bags are still in the trunk; Nate figures he can grab them later. Getting Sully and his crutches into the house had been enough trouble.

“Nate—”

“Elena would kill me if I let you go back home with a broken ankle,” Nate cuts in.

Sully shoots him a look. “Elena’s not here.”

“Yeah, but she will be.” Once she gets back from filming in Chile, anyway. Nate makes a mental note to tell Elena that she’s his excuse for getting Sully to stay. She’ll understand. She’ll roll her eyes at him a lot, but she’ll understand. Nate shrugs. “You can just hang out here for a few days,” or a week or so, “until you can get around without the crutches.”

“I can get around without them now,” Sully replies.

Nate raises his eyebrows. “How many times did you almost trip between the kitchen and the couch?” he asks.

“Shut up, kid,” Sully grumbles and takes another drink.

Nate just grins unrepentantly. “You can’t drive with your busted leg,” he says. “You’re stuck here.”

“Can’t believe you kidnapped me.” Sully heaves a sigh, but he doesn’t actually sound that upset.

“Yeah, well, you’d do the same for me,” Nate says.

“Until Elena got home, anyway.”

“Yeah.” Nate slumps back against the couch and stretches his arms over his head. “Want me to order a pizza or something?”

“Sure,” Sully says. “Pizza sounds great.”


	56. Nate/Elena, nostalgia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They get nostalgic about some pretty strange things. For beltsquid.

Elena’s halfway to the bedroom with yet another armload of boxes when she hears a thump, a muffled “ah, crap,” followed by an aggrieved sigh come from the study. She shakes her head and sets the boxes down just inside the bedroom door, then goes back down the hall and looks in. Nate’s crouched on the floor, trying to reorganize a scattered pile of journals and photos and random scraps of paper.

"That doesn’t look good," she comments and steps inside to help.

Nate gives her a rueful smile and shakes his head. “They don’t balance very well,” he says.

She just chuckles as she picks up one of the journals. Several papers have fallen out, and she tries to collect them as best she can. One of them, a page torn from a brochure, looks sort of familiar, and she turns it right-side up to read it. It’s from the place that rented the deep-sea excavation boat to her studio four years ago, the paper covered in Nate’s scribblings. A few names and phone numbers, a scratched-out note about a permit… “Aw, look,” she says, holding it up for him to see. “The first vehicle we ever destroyed.”

Nate glances at it and laughs. “Was that one really our fault, though?”

“Mm, good point,” Elena says. “The pirates were there because of you, so this one’s just _your_ fault.”


	57. Nate and Chloe, on Flynn's death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For atrafeathers. Grieving for Harry Flynn is a complicated thing. Loosely connected to [Chapter 3 of Wreckage](../../930395/chapters/1810106).

Nate sits on the top of the fence, staring out at the mountains and forests and valleys stretching away beyond the village, and turns Flynn’s lighter over and over in his hands. He’s spent most of the last few days (he’s lost count of how many, fear and exhaustion and pain and eventual unconsciousness wrecking his sense of time) at Elena’s side, waiting for her to wake up. But now she’s awake, mostly, and Tenzin’s kicked him out so he can work on patching her up without Nate getting underfoot. So Nate’s sitting outside the house, playing with Flynn’s lighter, and hating himself for mourning the man at all.

He should be relieved. Flynn betrayed him, tried on several occasions to kill him, nearly killed Elena. He should be _glad_ that the backstabbing son-of-a-bitch is dead. But while he’s angry at Flynn, at everything he did, he can’t take any joy in his death. Flynn was his friend, once. Nate’s not sure where or when or why things went wrong, but they weren’t always bad. He’s got a lot of good memories of Flynn, and much as he hates to admit it, he misses his friend. Even if that friend was gone long before Flynn dropped the grenade.

"Surprised to see you outside," Chloe says from behind him.

Nate half-turns to look at her. “Tenzin’s orders,” he replies.

"Ah." Chloe leans her arms on the fence and gazes out at the mountains. "How’s Elena?"

"Awake. Pretty out of it, but… she’s doing better." Nate lets out a slow breath, feeling like a weight’s been lifted off his chest just by saying the words. "I think she’s gonna be okay."

"Good."

Nate nods and looks down at the lighter, tossing it from hand to hand. Flynn always used to do these show-offy tricks with it, spinning it around and nearly lighting himself on fire. Nate had never been able to do anything like that, not without actually burning himself.

"What’s that?" Chloe asks. Nate holds it up, and her face falls. "Oh."

"I forgot to give it back to him," Nate says. He glances at it again and frowns. He doesn’t want it. He’s got enough reminders, one of them punched through his left side, of what happened to a man who used to be his friend. He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life stumbling across this thing. "Probably just gonna toss it," he says, waving it at the cliff in front of them. Some things are better off lost.

"No," Chloe says, sharp and a little raw. Nate blinks at her, and she shakes her head, seems to compose herself a bit. "Can I have it?"

Nate studies her for a second, then shrugs. “Sure,” he says and hands it over.

"Thanks."

He nods and looks back at the mountains. They should talk about it, probably, talk about everything that happened, but it’s far easier to let the seconds tick past in silence. Eventually Chloe straightens up and sighs. “I’ll be around,” she says. “See you at dinner?”

"Yeah. See you."


	58. Nate/Elena, Christmas decorations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid. 'Tis the season for fluffy Christmas prompts!

"Elena?"

"Yes?"

"You do remember that we live in Florida, right? It’s not gonna snow or anything."

Elena shrugged. “You don’t need snow for Christmas, Nate.”

Nate heaved a sigh. “I’m not really much of a Christmas person.”

"Well, you’re married to someone who does like the holiday." Elena gave him a winning smile. "C’mon, it’ll be fun!"

"Says the woman who’s _not_ being forced to climb to the roof to hang up Christmas lights.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nate, if anybody in this family is responsible for climbing up things—”

Nate made a face, but picked up the bag full of Christmas lights anyway. “If I come back inside and there’s Christmas music playing…”

"I’ll keep it to instrumental stuff only, I promise." Elena waved and headed for the back door. "I’m gonna go hang up the wreaths!"


	59. Uncharted/Avengers Crossover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For historymiss. Nate and Elena, meet James and Natasha.

Nate’s particular style of climbing lent itself to a certain amount of solitude. Eighty feet off the ground and clinging to the wall of a ruined tower (which itself was on a high cliff overlooking the river valley, of course), he didn’t really expect to run into anyone. Elena had made it across the bridge safely, while Nate… hadn’t, which was why he was climbing up the side of the tower while she, presumably, took the stairs. He’d meet her at the top, but for now, he was alone.

So when he grabbed onto the iron bar jutting out from the wall, it was rather startling to see a man dangling by one arm from the next bar up. Dangling by a _metal_ arm, and that fact distracted Nate enough that he didn’t notice the gun in the man’s other hand for a few seconds. His own gun was, of course, safely tucked into the holster. No way he could draw it before getting shot. Same problem with jumping away to another handhold.

Without any other options, Nate fell back on the one thing he had left. “Hi,” he said with a charming grin. “What brings you here?”

"I was about to ask you the same thing," the man replies.

"I asked first."

"I have a gun."

"Good point," Nate conceded. He was pretty sure that telling this guy the truth would get him shot— it was a safe bet that anyone at these long-forgotten ruins was after the same treasure as him. And most people were happy to shoot him to get at said treasure. "Just out sightseeing," he said after a moment’s hesitation. "It’s a vacation."

The man’s eyebrows inched up. “A vacation.”

"Yeah."

After a long pause, the man raised the gun to aim more squarely at Nate’s head. “Try again.”

Well, crap. “Uh—”

"Don’t shoot!"

Nate and the other man looked up towards the top of the tower, where Elena and a red-headed woman were peering over the side at them. The man glanced from the two women to Nate and then back again. “Natasha?”

Natasha shook her head. “It’s all right, James. They’re here for the same thing we are. We might be able to help each other.”

The man— James, apparently— sighed and holstered his gun, then pulled himself up with that freaky-yet-impressive metal arm and climbed on top of the iron bar. He glanced back at Nate for a second. “Need any help?”

"No."


	60. Elena, "Episode Four- Architects of the New World"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an anonymous prompter who asked for Elena's life before she met Nate.

"…and so the remaining ruins stand as a reminder to today’s builders: nothing lasts forever."

Elena’s concluding narration played over a slow pan across the ruins lining the harbor. The footage stopped abruptly, and Elena looked across the table at her producer. “Well?”

"Ending’s a little bleak," Andi said. "Powers that be might wanna have you redo it."

Elena sighed. “I’ve got something more upbeat scripted,” she said. “But the whole point is to learn from history—”

"Yeah, I know, I know," Andi cut in, though her tone was more condescending than supporting. Elena frowned. "Gotta keep the folks writing our checks happy, though."

"Can we at least try to get it through like this?"

"Oh, sure." Andi shrugged and idly twirled her pen in her fingers. "Don’t get too hung up on that, though. The rest of the episode was great."

Elena brightened. “Thanks.”

"I especially liked that shot from the top of the tower— the one looking down the old road? That was fantastic. How’d you get up there?"

"I climbed."

Andi blinked at her, then clicked on the video and scrolled it back to a shot of the tower in question. “ _You_ climbed up _that_!?” she asked, pointing at the four-story crumbling ruins.

"It wasn’t that hard. The stairs were intact between the second and third floors, so—"

"Elena, this isn’t a question of difficulty, god." Andi rubbed a hand over her face. "If you’d fallen and broken your neck out there, the guys in insurance would’ve had my head." She paused for a beat before adding, "And you’d probably have died."

"Well, if I had more of a budget, then maybe someone could come with me," Elena retorted.

Andi shrugged. “This is only your fourth episode,” she said, waving a hand at the screen. “You’re gonna have to make do with what we’ve got until mid-season. At least.”

"Well, then, you’ll just have to trust me to be careful."


	61. Nate/Elena, a quiet moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For VespidaeQueen.

Elena had gotten back so late last night that it was more accurately described as early this morning. Not anywhere close to her original plan, but she went where the story led her. Even when it led her to a bar that closed at four in the morning.

And of course, she’d only managed to get a few hours of sleep before she’d had to be awake for a conference call, then there was a report to write, and then a few sources to call… It was close to noon before Elena finally closed her laptop, shut off her phone, and climbed back into bed.

"Hi," Nate said, lowering his book as she flung herself at the mattress. "Gonna take a nap?"

"Uh-huh." Elena curled up against his side, her head on his chest and one leg thrown over his.

Nate chuckled and wrapped an arm around her back. “Good.” Elena just made a humming noise in agreement and closed her eyes. “Before you fall asleep,” Nate continued after a moment, “want me to put your phone on silent or something?”

"I turned it off."

He didn’t respond for a few seconds. “Wow,” he finally said. “You must be _really_ tired.”

"Shut up."

Nate chuckled and rubbed his hand up and down her back. “Go to sleep, ‘lena,” he said. “I’ll wake you up for dinner, okay?”

“‘kay.”


	62. Nate/Elena, rescues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

Nate’s history has left him with no small number of enemies. Lucky for him and the people who care about him, a lot of those enemies are in jail, and the ones who aren’t don’t spend a lot of time trying to track him down. But really, there only needs to be _one_ who’s committed to revenge at any cost to make their lives dificult.

Elena keeps her back to the wall and listens carefully as the guard approaches and then passes her hiding spot. Only one shot at this… She takes a deep breath, steps out into the hall, and fires a tranquilizer dart into the back of the guard’s neck. He yelps and grabs at it, but by the time he’s pulled it free, it’s too late. Elena winces as he pitches face-first into the floor. He’ll have some nasty bruises when he wakes up, but she doesn’t feel too torn up about it. He is helping hold her husband captive, after all.

A quick search of the unconscious guard finds a keycard and a radio. Elena takes both, then continues down the hall, counting off doors until she finds the right one. She hopes. She glances up and down the hall, then swipes the keycard and lets out a relieved breath when several heavy bolts slide back.

The makeshift cell is small and brightly lit, so Elena’s got a clear view of the blood and bruises littering Nate’s form. He’s slumped against one wall, head tilted back and eyes closed. “Back already?” he slurs. “I just got comfortable—”

"Oh, god, Nate." Elena rushes to his side and crouches down by him.

Nate’s eyes flutter open, and he squints at her. “Elena?” She nods, and he lets out a sharp breath. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

"I’ll bet," she says, taking his arm to help him to his feet.

"Very sore." Nate hisses through his teeth as he stands, bracing one hand on the wall to steady himself. "Got punched in the eye at least once."

"Yeah, I can tell," Elena says as she pulls his arm across her shoulders. "C’mon. Let’s get you out of here."


	63. Nate/Elena, wedding day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an anonymous prompter.

"So… that’s it," Nate says, a stunned grin on his face.

"I thought you didn’t want a big ceremony," Elena replies. It’s a little late for that now, what with the papers being signed and the rings being exchanged and all that.

"I don’t. I didn’t. It’s just…" Nate trails off and shakes his head, struggling for words.

Elena smiles and reaches out to squeeze his hand. “Can’t believe we actually did it?” she guesses.

"Sorta," Nate says, chuckling. "It’s weird, but… in a good way."

She laughs. “Good.”

He pulls his hand free, then reaches out to take her left hand in both of his, his thumb brushing across her wedding ring. “Looks good,” he says.

She pushes herself up on her toes to give her husband a kiss, and the thought of it— he’s her _husband_ — makes her giddy. “C’mon,” she says, tugging at his hand. “Let’s go find Sully.”

"Before he decides to follow our lead and gets hitched to a pretty lawyer?"


	64. Nate and Sully, bar fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

Nate twists to the side, taking the beer bottle on the shoulder instead of in the face. Still hurts like a son-of-a-bitch when it shatters, but he’d rather have a torn-up shoulder than a broken nose. He swings around and nails the guy in the jaw with a right hook, then promptly gets grabbed by the shoulders and hurled into a nearby table.

For once, the bar brawl _isn’t_ his fault. Sully’s date from last night turned out to have been married, and while Nate’s of the opinion that if she was cheating the problem’s more with the marriage than with Sully, her husband doesn’t agree. Which is why he and four of his friends have showed up at the bar to beat the crap out of Sully. Nate was hardly about to stand by and let his friend get his ass kicked, so now he’s getting the crap beaten out of him, too.

He staggers upright from the ruins of the table just as Sully collides with him. They end up back to back, more or less, while their still-standing opponents start to close in. “Next time, be more careful about your one-night stands, will ya?” Nate asks, raising his arms defensively.

"Eh. Worth it," Sully replies.

Nate snorts. “For you, maybe. We are _never_ getting adjoining hotel rooms again, you—”

The woman’s husband picks up a chair and throws it at them, and Nate’s suddenly got a lot more to worry about than future hotel accommodations.


	65. Six for Kim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six prompt fills for scribblykimbree.

_Nate and/or Sully - sleepless night_

It’s too quiet.

Nate stares at the ceiling of the room he’s staying in at Sully’s house. He’s been off the street for a month or so, since Sully picked him up, so he’s more or less used to sleeping on a bed again. But the quiet… Most of the places they’ve stayed between Cartagena and Miami have been in the hearts of cities. And before that, he’d slept on rooftops, the sounds of traffic and shouting blurring together.

Sully’s place is in a residential area on a relatively quiet street. It makes what little noise there is stand out, and Nate finds himself startling awake at every creaking board or passing car.

"Shit," he mutters. Fine. Not sleeping tonight. He flips on the light beside his— no, beside _the_ bed, not his, he’s just crashing here for a while— the light beside his bed and grabs a book. Maybe he’ll get lucky and pass out while he’s reading. Anything to ignore the quiet.

  
*

_Charlie - surprisingly domestic_

"Sorry, mate, can’t," Charlie says, tucking his phone between his shoulder and his ear. "Watchin’ my sister’s kids tonight."

There’s a long, long silence on the other end of the line. “You’re babysitting?” Nate asks incredulously.

"They’re not babies anymore," Charlie replies with a smirk. He finds the spoon he was looking for in a drawer and sets it on the counter. "I’ll catch up with you for drinks tomorrow night."

Nate sighs. “All right, fine,” he says. “Have fun with the kids.”

"Always do." Charlie hangs up and shoves his phone back in his pocket. The giggling from the living room has evolved into shrieking, and he pokes his head around the corner. "Oi! What’s the rule about jumping on the couch?"

Jeremy and Joanne both immediately drop into sitting positions, Jeremy a bit more gracefully. “Sorry, Uncle Charlie,” Joanne says.

He shakes his head. “C’mon, you two. Time to help with dinner.”

*

_Elena - what could not be unseen_

Elena blinked, eyes wide, then slowly crept away from the door. Her only consolation was the certainty that the people on the other side of the door wouldn’t hear her. Probably wouldn’t hear another tank rolling through, honestly.

She’d known that Chloe was on a rebound, since she and Nate ended their relationship, and she knew that Sully was… Sully. But, well, when Sully went off after her, Elena hadn’t _really_ though anything would come of it.

Apparently she misjudged.

She shook her head and eased her way down the steps. Only two things mattered right now: finding out if Tenzin had any alcohol so she could drown out the images seared into her brain, and making sure that Nate never, _ever_ found out about this.

  
*

_Sully - uncommon aggression_

Sully inched along the catwalk, peering down into each room as he passed over it. He could hear voices, movement, the sounds of a fight, but he hadn’t seen anyone yet. He’d tracked the bastards who had Nate to this warehouse, though. They had to be here somewhere.

The voices grew louder. “Simple question, boy,” someone drawled. There was the unpleasant but familiar thud of a fist hitting flesh, then an also familiar pained groan. Nate. “Where’s the treasure?”

Sully peered down into the next room. A trio of men surrounded Nate, who was tied to a chair and covered in blood. Nate coughed and spat blood on the floor. “Dunno,” he slurred. “Check your mom’s room, might’ve left it there—”

One of the thugs backhanded him hard enough to snap his head to the side. “You think you’re funny?”

Sully didn’t give Nate a chance to answer. He jumped off the catwalk, landing elbow-first into one of the men’s spines. Something cracked wetly when they hit the floor, but it wasn’t anything of his. Sully rolled to his feet, dodged the first punch, and nailed the second man with a punch straight to the face. He went down, clutching his probably broken nose, just as the last man grabbed Sully around the chest. Sully snarled and slammed his head back. As soon as the man released him, he whirled around and decked him, sending him sprawling to the floor.

The guy with the broken nose was the only one stupid enough to try and get back up. Sully grabbed the first thing that came to hand— a crowbar— and swung it at the guy’s head. He didn’t get up after that.

"Shit, Sully," Nate said.

Sully dropped the crowbar and turned to him. Nate was still covered in blood and fresh bruises, but his eyes were huge. “You okay, kid?” he asked, hands shaking a little as he went to untie the ropes.

"Oh, yeah," Nate said. "Just great." He coughed, then winced. "Ow. So that’s what broken ribs feel like."

Sully got the ropes untied. “C’mon,” he said grimly, taking Nate’s arm to help him to his feet. Should’ve been him, kid was barely nineteen, he should never’ve gone through this— “Let’s get outta here.”

*

_Nate/Elena - keep coming back to the same place_

"Are we lost?"

"No."

Elena sighed. "Do you know where we are?"

"Yeah," Nate said. "We're by that tree we've passed three times now."

"Four."

"If you say so."

Elena shook her head and looked around. This part of the forest didn't look any different from the rest of it, aside from the fact that it was a little more familiar, what with having come through this clearing four times now. They kept following the path, but it never actually seemed to lead out.

There was rustling off to the side, and she looked over at the tree to see Nate disappear up into the branches. "What're you doing?" she asked, walking over.

"Better view," Nate's voice said from somewhere within the tree. Elena walked under the branches and peered up; Nate grinned down at her, then held out his hand. "C'mon!"

Well, it wasn't like she had a better idea. She jumped up and grabbed his hand, clambering up onto a branch. Nate made good time-- of course he'd be a natural at tree-climbing-- and paused every so often to offer her a hand.

They eventually reached a point where the higher branches wouldn't support them, and Nate settled himself against the trunk. Elena let him help her up, and she grabbed at another branch overhead to steady herself as she sat. "Uh..." She looked around at the dense leaves surrounding them. "Now what?"

Nate shrugged, then leaned forward and kissed her. Elena wrinkled her nose at him when he pulled back. "This was your plan all along, wasn't it."

"You can't prove anything."

  
*

_Adventure family - a family affair_

"And you didn’t tell him?" Nate asks around his laughter.

Sully shakes his head. “No, it— it seemed like the kind of thing he should find out on his own, you know?”

Elena bursts into helpless giggles, and Nate barely manages to calm down enough to refill everyone’s wine. “Sully, I think your ability to attract weird shit has passed mine,” he says.

Sully shakes his head. “No, no no no,” he says, reaching for his glass. “I run into weird. You run into legendary and deadly.”

"And lucky me, I get both," Elena says with a grin. "Couldn’t have picked a better family."

Nate smiles back and picks up his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

 

 

 

 


	66. Nate/Elena, surprisingly domestic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For vespidaequeen. Sappy soon-to-be-parents fic alert.

Elena lay in bed for a few minutes after waking up from her nap, trying to catalog where various aches and pains had migrated too. Her legs no longer hurt, which was a plus, but now her back was killing her. She grimaced as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. As excited as she was about having a baby, this whole pregnancy thing was kind of overrated.

The baby kicked as soon as she stood up, and Elena directed a wry smirk at her stomach. "Yeah, sure, get comfortable," she muttered. "Don't mind me."

There was a thud and muffled cursing from the second bedroom. Elena frowned and crossed the hall to poke her head in. Nate was rubbing his scraped knuckles and glaring at the half-assembled crib. "Did it bite you?" she asked with a teasing grin.

Nate looked up, startled. "Something like that," he said. "I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No, you didn’t.” She nodded at the crib. “I thought that was gonna wait.”

He shrugged, an almost nervous smile crossing his face. “Wanted to surprise you,” he said. 

Elena put her hand on his shoulder and pulled him down so she could kiss his cheek. “I can pretend to be surprised when it’s done,” she offered.

“I think I’d rather have your help—this piece keeps trying to take my hand off.” 


	67. Nate/Elena, a sleepless night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For twinklingtruckee.

“Are you awake?”

“...no.”

“It sounds like you're awake.”

“It's surprisingly appropriate sleep-talking.”

“You don't talk in your sleep. You snore sometimes, though.”

“Liar.”

“I thought I was a terrible liar.”

“Ugh. Fine. I'm awake.”

“Jet-lag?”

“Probably.”

“This sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“We could have sex again.”

“Eh...”

“Yeah, I'm not really feeling it either.”

“Ugh. I need to sleep, I have to be up at seven.”

“Oh god, why?”

“I have this thing called a real job, Nate.”

“I have a real job!”

“Okay.”

“Treasure hunting is a real job.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Nothing's helping me sleep right now.”

“I can tell.”

“Sorry.”

“I'm just gonna... see if lying very still with my eyes closed does anything.”

“Didn't seem to be working before.”

“I'm an optimist.”


	68. Chloe and Flynn, a thousand little stings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

When it's all over-- when Shambhala's a crater and Harry's blown himself to pieces-- Chloe finds herself obsessing over the little things, running through them over and over in her mind. In the moment, it had been strangely easier to deal with the big things. Getting Nate thrown in prison, repeatedly trying to kill Nate-- it was easier to be angry about that. Easier to figure out what to do.

But now that it's over, Chloe keeps prodding at the fading bruises on her hip from where Harry threw her aside after she jumped in front of him to cover Nate's escape. She keeps remembering the way he grabbed her arm and shoved her onto the train. The way he grabbed her arm again, later, when he dragged her in to be Lazarevic's hostage.

She keeps remembering all the times he covered for her, protected her from Lazarevic, made sure he wouldn't find out. She wonders if he ever cared, or if she was just a trophy. Something else he could take from Nate.

They're all little things, really, relative to what he did to Nate. Or to Elena, and he barely knew her. He very nearly killed them both. Chloe's got a few bruises. But that's what she keeps thinking about. All the little things, and how she wishes they added up to something that would make it easier to deal with.


	69. Elena, keep coming back to the same place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For jamaya.

She keeps going back to the airport. It's stupid and she knows it-- Marlowe's people have left the city completely, according to her contacts. No one else is going to fly out into the Rub' al Khali, and even if they did, they're not likely to pass over a single convoy somewhere in the middle of the wasteland. This isn't Nepal. She can't follow him this time.

But she keeps going back. She doesn't spend all day there; she manages to eat, straighten up her apartment, get some work done. But inevitably, every day after the first, she finds herself driving back, heading into the terminal, scanning the crowd for... something. Black suits and red ties, maybe, someone to follow, to question.

Or maybe she's looking for familiar dark hair and a smile that still makes her heart skip a beat, for a red guayabera and arms held out for a hug. For her family.

She never sees anyone. She knows she won't, every time she drives out there. But she can't stop looking. There's nothing else she can do.


	70. Nate/Elena, too good to be true, probably is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For goldenhinde.

He doesn't mean to pass out. He just needs some relief from the heat and the pain and the thirst. The shadow under the rock offers at least a little shelter from the sun, and he huddles there, waiting for high noon to pass. He doesn't feel himself falling unconscious; in the space of a few breaths, everything goes mercifully dark. 

“Nate.”

He rolls over, blinking in the sudden light. Too hot again. He can't see clearly, and he blinks, trying to resolve the blurry figure in front of him. “'lena?”

She kneels down in the sand, and he can see her smile. “Thought I'd never find you out here,” she says.

Nate shakes his head, almost frantically, ignoring the way it makes his temples pound. “No,” he mumbles. “No, no, you can't... you can't be here...” It's impossible, she couldn't have followed him, couldn't have found him.

“Shh.” Her fingers are cool against his cheek, and he leans into the touch in spite of himself. “It's gonna be okay, Nate. It'll be all right.”

He shakes his head again. “How did you...” _find me_ , he doesn't say, as he reaches for her. His hand goes through her arm, and she dissolves in a shimmer of heat.

The sun's low enough in the sky to reach under the rock, destroying the shadow. Nate stares at the place where Elena had been for far too long. Then, slowly, everything in him protesting, he gets to his feet and starts walking.


	71. Charlie, time heals all wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For nafroti.

Nate's never had much of a poker face. So when Charlie comes around the corner, it's all too obvious that Nate's eyes drop to the cane before his entire expression goes slack with shock. And guilt. Charlie nods at him as he limps over, and Nate tries to give him a friendly smile. “Hey, Charlie.”

Ten months since that mess in Syria, and things still aren't back to normal. Charlie smiles back, but it's a little tense. “How you been, mate?”

Nate shrugs. “Pretty good,” he says, then nods at the cane. “You, uh, you still need that?”

Charlie glances down at it. “Eh, only sometimes,” he says. “Rest of the time it gives me an excuse to carry around a big, heavy stick wherever I go.” It's not a lie; he only needs the cane on days when his leg's acting up. Just so happens that today's one of those days.

Nate chuckles, and Charlie grins, clapping him on the shoulder with his free hand. “C'mon,” he says. “First round's on you.” Maybe they're not back to normal yet, but friends are too damn hard to come by in this business. They'll work it out.


	72. Nate and Charlie, cooperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For quasarden.

“Damn,” Nate muttered, staring up at the wall. “I can open the door from the other side. Just gotta get up to that window.”

“I could probably break it down,” Charlie offered.

Nate shook his head. “That'll set off the alarm. If I unlock it, though...”

“Right.”

“But I can't reach up there.” The only real handhold that would support his weight was a busted drainage pipe on the second floor. Nate gave Charlie an appraising look. “Give me a boost?”

Charlie looked up at the wall, then at Nate, then at the wall again. “I don't think you're gonna be able to reach that, mate.”

Nate squinted at the pipe again. “Nah, I can get it,” he said. Probably. He might have to jump a little, but it'd be fine.

“You better know what you're doing.” Charlie crouched down so Nate could climb on his shoulders, then grunted as he straightened up. “This was a bad bloody idea, mate.”

“Just hold still,” Nate said, reaching up for the pipe. His fingers brushed against it. Just a little higher... “Sorry,” he said and jumped off Charlie's shoulders. Charlie cursed creatively, but Nate managed to get both hands around the pipe.

It creaked unpleasantly, and Nate looked over to see the supports slowly coming loose from the wall. “Oh, shit,” he muttered, just before the entire pipe ripped free of the wall and dropped him on Charlie's head.

“Okay,” Charlie said a few minutes later, a handkerchief pressed to his bloody nose. “I'm just gonna kick the door down.

Nate prodded at the scrapes on his elbow and nodded. “Good plan.”


	73. Nate/Elena, barfight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

Nate had a lengthy list of enemies and rivals, but for the most part, he knew who they were and what, exactly, he’d done to piss them off. There were a few, though, that he’d either forgotten or who he actually hadn’t wronged in some way— they’d just decided to blame him.

He didn’t recognize the guy (or any of the guy’s friends) who’d hauled him out of his chair and was drawing back for a punch, but he really hoped it was the latter. He’d feel a lot better wallowing in misery and bruises tomorrow if this  _wasn’t_  his fault.

"Hey!" Elena shouted from behind the cluster of pissed-off men. They all half-turned to look at her, even the guy holding Nate. "What the hell are you doing?" she snapped.

"None of your business."

"That’s my husband you’re about to start hitting, so it kind of is," she replied dryly, shifting her weight a bit.

Apparently the news that Nate was married was somewhat confusing. Nate took advantage of their distraction by sucker punching the guy holding him. The guy doubled over, which gave Nate a clear view of Elena throwing a right hook into the jaw of the man closest to her.

Things sort of got out of control after that. By the time they managed to sneak out the back, there were several broken chairs littering the floor, the police were on their way, and they were both a bit bruised and bloodied. “Need to bake an anonybous donation,” Nate said, pressing a hand to his bleeding nose and tilting his head back. “Pay for dabages.”

Elena paused in the process of retying her hair and put a hand on the back of Nate’s head. “Tilt your head  _forward_ , Nate, how many times do I have to tell you—”

"I’b not gonna die frob a bloody nose," Nate said, but leaned his head forward anyway.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not broken, is it?” she asked, twisting her hair back into its usual messy bun.

"No, I’b fine," Nate said.

Elena snorted. “Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far.” Sirens wailed at the front of the bar. She sighed and glanced down the alley. “C’mon,” she said, linking her arm with his. “Let’s go find a cab.”


	74. Harry and Chloe, driving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For bannteagans on tumblr.

"You never let me drive."

Chloe glances away from the road for a second and can’t help but smirk at the sight of Harry legitimately sulking in the passenger seat. “Well, yes,” she says. “I’m the driver. It’s what I do.”

"We’re not on a job," he says. "We’re driving into town to pick up takeout!"

"Doesn’t mean that we might not have to take evasive maneuvers," Chloe points out. The look Harry shoots her is withering. She sighs. "Honestly? The way I drive when I’m in a car chase through London is how you drive normally. It’s unnecessary." And a little terrifying, because she at least knows what she’s doing. Harry’s just going off instinct and rage.

"I do  _not_.”

"Which of us is the professional, here?"


	75. Nate and Elena, arrival in Yemen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree. (The prompt was "Orly?". She expected something funny. She got this. I'm not sure if she's forgiven me yet. :P )

This was a mistake.

Nate and Sully have been in Yemen for all of fifteen minutes, and already, Elena’s regretting answering the phone when Sully called, much less agreeing to help. She’d thought… she’d hoped, a little bit, that Nate had been hurting as much as she had. That he’d be sorry.

Instead, he’s been arrogant and obnoxious, lying right to her face about what he’s here for, and then he has the audacity to look like he’s  _won_ something when he points out that she’s still wearing her wedding ring.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she retorts. “It helps in this part of the world.”

“Oh, really.”

 _Yeah. Really._  Part of her wants to slap the cocky smile right off his face, mostly because he’s  _right_ , damn him. She’s wearing it because it helps, yes, but she’s also wearing it for exactly why he thinks: she’s still in love with him. It’d hurt so much less if she wasn’t.

“I see you’re still wearing yours,” she counters. He looks confused for a moment, until she gestures at the ring hanging from his neck. That’s what he’s really married to, now, Drake’s legacy and his own obsession. Stupid of her to hope for anything different.


	76. Nate and Sully, sandwiches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

It’s almost one in the afternoon by the time Nate wanders into the kitchen. He and Sully stepped off their flight from Buenos Aires at almost two a.m., and Nate’s been asleep pretty much since he hit his bed around two-thirty. He yawns and blinks at Sully. “Whatcha doing?”

“Making lunch.” Sully glances up from his sandwich making and smirks at Nate’s unkempt state. “Grab the pickles from the fridge, would ya?”

Nate nods, yawns again, and shuffles across the kitchen. He grabs the jar and lets the fridge door swing shut on its own, then starts trying to unscrew the lid. Sully’s making sandwiches, he should probably help a  _little_.

Except the lid will not budge. Nate scowls at the jar as he keeps trying, twisting the lid until his fingers hurt. Sully clears his throat. “Need some help?”

Nate huffs out a breath. It’s too early for this. “I can’t get it,” he grumbles and hands the jar to Sully, who promptly twists the lid off.

Sully smirks. Nate blinks at him. “You probably loosened it for me,” Sully says. Nate just glares and throws himself into a chair, wincing when his ankle bangs against the table leg. A few moments later, a plate with a giant sandwich appears in front of him. “Just remember this next time you think about calling me old man,” Sully says with a grin. Nate decides to ignore him in favor of the food.


	77. Nate/Elena, seeking solace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

The front door slams shut, and Nate glances up from his book as Elena stomps into the bedroom. She drops her bag on the floor, then flings herself face-first onto the bed, landing with a thump and a pained whimper. “You okay?” Nate asks, folding over the corner of his book.

“No.” Her voice is muffled in the pillow. “Shitty day.” 

Nate sets the book aside. “Sorry.”

Elena mumbles something incoherent in reply. She starts trying to toe off her boots, with little success; Nate scoots down the bed and tugs them off for her. “Thanks,” she says, lifting her head enough to see him.

Nate just smiles and moves back up to lean against the headboard. “C’mere,” he says, holding out his arms. Elena sighs and inches over until she’s lying between his legs, her arms around his waist and her face against the side of his neck. Nate presses a kiss to her hair, idly running one hand up and down her back. “You want me to order pizza for dinner?” he asks. She just nods. “Okay.”


	78. Nate, Elena, and Sully, celestial navigation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

It’s late when Elena finally gets home. She’s not surprised to find that she missed dinner; she is a bit surprised by how quiet the house is. The Jeep’s in the driveway and Sully’s truck is parked out front, so unless they went for a walk, Nate and Sully should be here.

She changes out of her work clothes, then sets about tracking down her boys. The study’s empty, as are the living room and kitchen. She hears voices from outside while she’s standing in the kitchen, and a look out the back window shows Nate and Sully sitting on the edge of the deck, beer bottles sitting beside them.

It  _is_  a nice night. Elena grabs a beer for herself, ignoring the little voice in her head that says she really should eat something first, and goes out to join them.

“…like I said, it’s easier with a sextant,” Sully’s saying as Elena shuts the door. “Without that or a map, the best you can really do is figure out what direction you’re walking.”

Nate sighs and tilts his head back, looking up at the stars. “Just seems like it’d be a good thing to know.”

“What, you planning on getting lost in a desert again?” Sully asks.

Nate’s answering smile is a little tense. “Usually don’t plan any of this,” he says.

Elena clears her throat. “Am I interrupting?” she asks as they turn to look up at her.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Sully says. “Long day?”

Nate beams at her and moves his beer so she can sit on his other side. “You have no idea,” Elena says as she sits down next to him. Nate wraps his arm around her shoulder and presses a quick kiss to her cheek. “What’re you two up to?”

“Celestial navigation,” Nate replies. “Apparently I need a sextant, though.”

“Well, now I know what to get you for your birthday.”

Sully groans. “There goes my idea.”

“Spares wouldn’t hurt,” Elena says. “He got how many compasses last Christmas?”

“And how often do I remember to bring any of them anywhere?” Nate asks, grinning. Elena just shakes her head and takes a sip of beer, then leans her head against Nate’s shoulder. Sully starts explaining something about finding constellations, and Elena lets her eyes fall shut. Nice way to end the day.


	79. Nate, Elena, and Sully, misfortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For atrafeathers.

“How do we always manage to get ourselves into these messes?” Elena asks. She prods at the gash on Sully’s temple and sighs when he flinches away. “Hold still.”

“I’m  _fine._ ”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Easier to just do what she says, Sully,” Nate says from the other side of the cell, where he’s examining the stone wall for cracks or handholds. “You’re not gonna win.”

Sully snorts. “Voice of experience?” 

“Yes,” Nate and Elena reply in sync. Sully chuckles, then winces when Elena starts poking at his wounds again.

After a few moments, Elena sighs and sits back on her heels. “Nate, give me your shirt.”

“What?”

She gestures at Sully. “I need something to use for bandages, and you’re the only one who wore layers today.”

“You don’t have—” Sully starts to protest, but Elena silences him with a glare.

Nate sighs and reaches back to pull his shirt off. Before he can do more than grab the fabric, a door slams open in the hall outside. Sully and Elena jump to their feet; Sully staggers a bit, and Elena reaches out a hand to steady him. “Make a break for it?” Sully murmurs, glancing at Nate. 

He nods and stands on one side of the door, motioning for Elena and Sully to take the other side. Footsteps stop just outside the door, then they hear the clear sound of a key turning in a lock.


	80. Nate and Chloe, safety first

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For atrafeathers.

Nate rolls across the hood of the car and flings himself at the passenger door. It’s locked. “Chloe!” he shouts over the hail of gunfire. “Why is the car locked!?”

“Didn’t want someone to steal it!” she calls, entirely too cheerful, from the other side of the car.

“Can you unlock it? Before the car explodes or something?”

“Cars don’t blow up that easily, that’s just a myth—”

“CHLOE!”

There’s a faint click from the handle by his head, and Nate yanks the door open. “About time!”

Chloe slides into the driver’s seat and sets her gun on the dashboard. “Buckle up,” she advises.

“How can you be so calm when—”

The rest of Nate’s question is cut off when a grenade explodes right in the middle of the mercenaries shooting at them. “That’s how,” Chloe replies blandly. “Now, I mean it. Buckle up.”

Nate snags her gun with one hand and grabs the seat belt with the other. “You got it.”


	81. Nate/Elena, talk history to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid. Inspired by [this post](http://rhiannon42.tumblr.com/post/80133446845/rhiannon42-an-uncharted-world-the).

Nate let the hotel room door fall shut behind him with a sigh. Long day. “Hey, I’m back,” he called.

“Hey.” Elena waved at him as he came into the room proper; she was sitting at the desk, her laptop open and papers scattered around her. “How’d it go? Find anything cool?” She blinked at him. “And weren’t you wearing a Henley when you left this morning?”

He grinned and carefully slipped the backpack off his shoulders. “It went great,” he said. “The maps I found were right— there’s a whole complex down in the canyon— here, check it out.” He unzipped the bag and pulled out a shirt-wrapped bundle. He carefully unwound the shirt and set it aside, then held up a red clay vase. “There were almost a dozen of these in one of the rooms,” he explained, turning the vase over in his hands. “Pretty much all in perfect condition. I think the complex might have been a temple or something— they looked ceremonial. These symbols on the handles are all connected to the underworld, I think, I’d have to double-check my books, but that would make sense, having a temple for the dead in a canyon. And I think that some burial sites have been found in the area—”

Nate cut off abruptly as something soft hit him in the face. He blinked and fumbled with both things in his hands for a second before realizing that Elena had just thrown her bra at him. He looked up to see her turned to face him in the chair, grinning as she continued to unbutton her shirt. He still hadn’t figured out how she was able to take off her bra without taking off her shirt first. His current theory was magic.

“Go on,” Elena said and gave him an obvious once-over.

Nate smirked. “I didn’t know North African pottery got you so excited,” he said dryly as he set the vase down on the dresser.

She rolled her eyes and got to her feet. “It’s not the pottery,” she explained as she walked over and slid her arms around his waist. “It’s you talking about it.”

“Ah.” Elena was starting to untuck his shirt, and Nate tossed her bra over his shoulder with a shrug. “So, do you want me to keep talking, then?”

She gave him a look that was downright appraising, then smirked and shook her head. “Nah,” she said, sliding her hands under his shirt. “I can think of  _much_  better things for you to do with your mouth.”


	82. Nate/Elena, summer love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

Summer in Panama is oppressively hot and humid, the thunderstorms that hit nearly every afternoon offering only meager relief. It’s the kind of weather that makes lying in bed under a ceiling fan sound like a perfectly worthwhile way to spend the day. Elena stretches lazily and glances to the side. Of course, the presence of an attractive, naked treasure hunter in the bed with her also helps that argument. 

Nate’s lying as close as he can to her without actually touching; she’s learned, in the past week, that he’s quite cuddly, which is adorable so long as they’re staying someplace with air conditioning. But when a single thread-bare sheet is too much? He can stay on his side of the bed.

"Are you awake?" Nate asks, nudging her lightly with his arm.

"For now." Taking yet another nap sounds like a great idea. They don’t have anywhere to be until after the sun’s gone down. And if she’s asleep, she won’t have to think about how unpleasantly hot and sticky everything is.

Nate rolls onto his side and throws an arm around her. Elena grimaces and tries to push the offending limb away. “C’mon, no, it’s too hot,” she complains.

"You’re too hot," Nate replies and kisses the side of her neck.

She laughs in spite of herself. “You are terrible at flirting.”

"Good thing I’ve got these ruggedly handsome looks going for me, then," Nate says, grinning at her. Elena rolls her eyes and pushes him away. He’s not wrong, though. He is cute, and funny, and sweet, and a whole host of other nice things. That’s the real reason she’s stuck with him and Sully while they’re selling off their ill-gotten loot. It might just be a mid-summer fling, but she wants to make it last as long as possible. 


	83. Nate and Sully, rite of passage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

Sully was halfway through his first cup of coffee when Nate came staggering through the door of their shared hotel room. The kid looked like hell— exhausted and squinting through what Sully assumed was a hangover headache, his hair disheveled, his clothes rumpled. Kid’s first walk of shame. He was so proud.

"Good night?" Sully asked mildly.

Nate peered at him, zeroed in on the mug of coffee in his hands, then stumbled across the room to the coffee pot. “s’all right.” He poured his coffee with exaggerated care and still managed to splash some on his hand. “Ow.”

Sully blinked. “Just all right?” he asked. “What happened to that girl you were chatting up?”

"She and her friends left about an hour after you did," Nate said. He finished dumping sugar into his coffee, gave it a half-hearted stir, then guzzled down about half the mug in one go.

Sully waited until he’d come up for air before asking, “And you didn’t go with her?”

"Nah," Nate said, pausing to take another drink of coffee. "I was talking to the bartender about her tattoos. She had a bunch of hieroglyphics on one arm."

Okay, that was a very Nathan Drake pickup line, but Sully wasn’t about to judge. “So, you ended up going home with her?”

Nate shook his head. “We just talked about Egyptian history until the bar closed and her girlfriend came to pick her up.”

Sully set his mug down on the table. “When did the bar close?”

"Two. I think." Nate downed another quarter of his coffee and dropped gracelessly into the chair across from Sully. "She kept givin’ me free drinks. Lots of vodka. I don’t really remember leaving the bar."

Sully stared, feeling both impressed and incredulous. He checked his watch to confirm the time. “It’s eight-thirty now.”

"Yeah."

"Where did you  _go_  for six and a half hours?”

"Not really sure, but I woke up on the roof of the church four blocks south." Nate pinched the bridge of his nose. "Took me half an hour just to climb down. My head was killing me." He grimaced, then added, " _Is_ killing me. Do you have aspirin?”

"In my bag," Sully said. "So… you didn’t actually go home with anyone last night."

"Nope." Nate cast a forlorn look at Sully’s duffel bag. Sully sighed and stood up to fetch the painkillers. "Thanks," Nate said as Sully set the bottle on the table in front of him.

"You’re welcome."


	84. Nate/Elena, equivalent exchange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For emeralddawn13. Sappy domestic fluff ahoy.

"This doesn’t seem fair," Nate said.

"Sure it does." Elena set the rest of the plates next to the sink— the sink itself was more or less full of dirty dishes— and brushed off her hands. "I cook, you do the dishes."

Nate eyed the sink with no small amount of dismay. “Isn’t there some other chore I could do?” he asked. “Do the gutters need cleaning?”

Elena snorted. “One, no they don’t, and two, you don’t actually  _clean_ them, you just climb to the roof and get distracted and end up taking a nap up there or try to jump to the tree or something.”

"I only tried jumping to the tree once."

"Because you almost broke your ankle when you missed." Elena shook her head. "Besides, yardwork is a whole separate category of chores. This is the kitchen-chores trade."

"I’m not getting out of this, am I."

"Nope." Elena reached up and patted him on the shoulder. "If you hadn’t let them pile up for the last four nights…"

"Yeah, yeah." Nate sighed and planted his hands on his hips. "What if we—"

"We’re not throwing out all the dirty dishes and buying new ones."

He blinked. “That was spooky.”

Elena grinned. “I know you very well.” With that, she turned on her heel and all but skipped from the room. “I’ll be in the study if you need me!”


	85. Nate and Charlie, terrible advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For pohutukaryl: Charlie offering terrible life advice on a less life-threatening subject

"It’s a shortcut," Nate muttered under his breath, twisting to look over his shoulder as he began maneuvering the car through a three-point turn. "It’ll get us there in half the time."

"It worked before," Charlie said. "Not my fault they’re shut down the road for construction."

Nate sighed, then grimaced and hit the brakes as the brick wall behind them approached far too quickly for his liking. “Damn. Look, just call Chloe and ask her to look up directions for us.”

"Can’t."

Nate shot Charlie an exasperated look. “If you forgot to put minutes on your phone, Cutter, I swear to god—”

"Her phone’s broken again."

Nate snorted and shook his head. “What happened this time?”

"She was light on the details, but it involved horses in some way."

The car was finally facing the right way— or, if not the right way, then at least no longer facing a dead-end alley. “Right,” he said. “Then call Elena and ask her to look up directions for us.”

"Isn’t she back in the States?"

"Her company pays the cell bills, she can take the call."

"No, I meant, how much shit are you gonna get because we had to call your wife, who is on the other side of an ocean from us, to get directions to this pub?" Charlie asked, pulling his phone from his pocket.

"Less than if we hadn’t asked for directions at all and just drove in circles for three hours."


	86. Nate and Sully, honest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

"Hey, kid, can you hand me the screwdriver?"

Nate frowned and extracted his arm from the plane’s engine, then crouched by the open toolbox. “Which one?” he asked, rummaging through the mess of unsorted tools and bolts and screws and other assorted odds and ends.

"The green one."

Nate found two screwdrivers matching that description and held them over the top of the engine for Sully to take. He grabbed one and went back to grumbling indistinctly at the plane. With a smirk, Nate picked up the wrench and went back to work. “So, uh, Elena and I have been talking,” he began. Easier to say this when he could direct his words to the engine. “She says she wants to have a kid within the next year.”

Sully didn’t reply for a few moments. “What’d you say?”

"Well—" Nate paused as he tugged at a particularly stubborn bolt, "it’s not like we’re gettin’ any younger."

He chuckled. “So, that was a yes.”

"Yeah."

Sully’s side of the plane fell silent for a few moments. “You don’t sound too happy about it,” he said cautiously.

The bolt came free, and Nate set it aside with a sigh. “I dunno, I just— I mean, I want a kid or two, but I— I’m not sure how good I’ll be at the whole, y’know, dad thing.” He hesitated, turning the wrench over in his hands, before adding, “You did set the bar pretty high.”

Sully went quiet again, long enough to make Nate want to say  _anything_ to fill the silence. Then Sully let out a soft chuckle. “You’ll be just fine, kid,” he said. “Don’t worry about it too much.”


	87. Chloe and Elena, exhausted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

Elena still hadn’t decided if it was coincidence or design that found her and Chloe staying at the same Brussels hotel. Chloe claimed it was an accident, and she certainly hadn’t known the other woman would be in town, but still, of all the hotels in all the world… That said, it was nice to have a friendly face around, someone to grab dinner with that she hadn’t spent all day with. Her crew was great, but sometimes she needed a break.

It also meant that when Elena found herself in the dimmest corner of the hotel dining room, nursing her coffee and praying for her head to stop pounding, she didn’t have to wallow in misery alone. Chloe poked her head into the dining room, spotted Elena, and made her way over, shoulders slumped and head bowed. “Morning, Sunshine,” she said, dropping into the chair across the table.

Elena waved her fingers at her. “Morning.” She set her coffee down and covered her mouth to stifle a yawn.

Chloe smirked. “Fun night?”

"Ugh. Hardly." Elena shook her head. "I was out until almost three chatting with an administrator in the Ukrainian ambassador’s office. She swore she had all kinds of information about the EU vote happening today."

"I take it she was exaggerating a bit?" Chloe asked.

"No, she actually had some good info," Elena replied. "She just didn’t share it until I’d paid for dinner and enough alcohol to kill a horse." She shook her head. "I didn’t get back here until three, stayed up until four making sure my notes were legible, and I have a nine-thirty interview today."

Chloe grimaced in sympathy. “Sounds worse than my night,” she said. “Spent it sitting in a car waiting for some ‘friends’ to finish their job, didn’t get to bed until three or so.”

Elena blinked at her. “Why are you awake, then?”

"Gotta pick people up at ten, drive us all over to see the client," Chloe explained. "One of the many boring parts of being the driver."

A waiter came over with a full pot of coffee; Chloe and Elena both immediately held out their mugs for a fill and refill, respectively. Once the waiter continued on his way, Chloe held up her mug. “Here’s to caffeine,” she said.

Elena chuckled and clinked her mug against Chloe’s. “Amen to that.”


	88. Three for Kim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three short fills for scribblykimbree, who delights in sending me large batches of prompts.

_baisemain - a kiss on the hand_

"Well, Victor," Chloe said as she finished lacing up her shoes and stood up, "as always, it’s been a pleasure."

Sully chuckled and grinned. “Yes, it has.” He set down his half-empty mug of coffee and walked her to the door of his hotel room. As she reached for the door, he caught her hand in his and pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles. “Let me know next time you’re in town.”

Chloe smirked. “And next time, the room’s on me.” She winked at him and took her hand back, then let herself out of the room. Sully watched her walk down the hall, feeling reasonably certain that the extra swing in her hips was for his benefit, and didn’t go back inside until she’d disappeared around the corner.

*

_gymnophoria - the sensation that someone is mentally undressing you_

"Dammit." Nate swore and yanked the knot out of his tie. Closing in on forty, and he still didn’t know how to tie the damn things.

"You don’t need a tie," Elena said from her perch on the bed. "You look good without it."

He didn’t need to look at her to know what expression was her face. “I can feel you undressing me with your eyes.”

"And when we get home," Elena said, getting to her feet, "I can undress you with my hands."

He chuckled and looped the tie around his neck. “Let me give it one more try,” he said.

In the mirror, he saw Elena’s reflection roll her eyes. “You do know the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results?”

He grinned. “Like you didn’t know I was crazy when you married me.” 

*

_strikhedonia - the pleasure of being able to say “to hell with it”_

"So, there’s the goods," Sully said as Nate returned the statues to their case. "Let’s see the money."

The man sitting across the table from them smiled without mirth, and Nate felt the atmosphere in the room change. There were half a dozen other men in this seedy back room of an equally seedy bar, and suddenly their attention was fixed on Nate and Sully. “You see,” their client said, “I have been thinking about that. And it would be much simpler if you just left the case here and walked away.”

Nate scanned the room. Seven guys total, including their client, none of them any bigger than he was. He could probably take four of ‘em, if Sully took the other three. “Really,” Sully said dryly. “And why do you think we’d do that?”

The man waved a hand at the room. “You don’t really have a choice.”

Nate looked at Sully. Sully looked at Nate. Nate shrugged one shoulder, gave him a tiny fraction of a nod. Sully let out a silent sigh and nodded back.

There were other buyers.

"Sorry you feel that way," Nate said, then grabbed the edge of the table and flipped it, sending beer bottles and empty glasses raining down on their client. Sully already had the case in hand, and as Nate stood, he clobbered one of the guys upside the head with it. Nate ducked a punch, grabbed his chair, and threw it at the two men coming his way. Nothing quite like a business deal gone sour in their line of work.


	89. Nate and Chloe, not in love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

_anagapesis - the feeling when one no longer loves someone they once did_

She’s not in love with him anymore.

Chloe idly picks at the label on her beer bottle. Nate and Elena were in London for Elena’s job, and she and Charlie had invited them out for drinks. She’s alone at the table for the moment; Charlie had disappeared off to the men’s room, probably, and Nate and Elena had nominated themselves to go buy the next round. Chloe had watched them, the way Nate kept his hand on Elena’s shoulder as they navigated the crowd, the way he laughed at something she said, their easy, comfortable smiles.

In the months after Nepal it had stung, seeing them like this, and she’d always looked away. But tonight she just watches her friends and catches herself smiling a bit. It doesn’t hurt anymore. The thought had come to her out of nowhere, but when she stops, turns it over in her mind, she recognizes that it’s not a revelation, not really. She’s not in love with Nate anymore. She still loves him, sure, as a friend, but it’s a relief to not feel that ache.

"Something funny?" Charlie asks as he slides back into his seat.

Chloe shakes her head. “Nah,” she says with a grin. “Just having a good night.”


	90. Young Nate and Sully, driving lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For historymiss.

"…and you just pull that to put it in drive," Sully said. "Make sure you’ve got your foot on the brake when you do, okay?"

"Okay." Nate shifted position a bit, tilting his head to the side to look down at the placement of his feet relative to the pedals.

Sully sighed. Not much else he could do right now other than let the kid actually start driving. “Well, then, give it a shot.”

Nate nodded and checked the pedals again before carefully shifting the car from park to drive. The truck started to creep forward, then abruptly lurched as Nate hit the gas a little too hard. “Whoa!” Nate yelped, slamming the brakes.

Sully grimaced as his head hit the back of the seat. “Try again,” he said. “A little less aggressive this time, huh? Slamming the gas and peeling out is the advanced stuff.”

Nate’s eyes lit up. “Are you gonna teach me how to drive in a car chase?”

Sully chuckled and shook his head. “Let’s start with the basics first.”


	91. Nate and Elena, family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For elliedrake.

Elena paces across the living room, phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear, and wishes there was a polite way to tell her producer’s assistant to just get to the point already. Nate’s sitting on the couch with his book, having finally stopped pouting after she got up (and stopped cuddling) in order to answer the phone.

"…so if you want to get there early, we could fly out next Thursday—"

Finally, something concrete. Elena pauses, frowning, then shakes her head. “Can we fly out the day after? Thursday’s my father-in-law’s birthday.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Nate’s head snap up, a look of pure bewilderment on his face.

"Uh, Friday? Sure, I think that’ll work, I’ll have to double check though. Can I put you on hold?" Before Elena can respond, there’s a click and tinny hold music.

Better than having to listen to the man ramble on for another ten minutes, at least. Elena turns to look at Nate, angling the phone away from her mouth. “What?”

"Your father-in-law?" Nate repeats, eyebrows raised.

Elena shrugs. “It’s easier than saying ‘my husband’s best friend who also raised him and is essentially his adoptive father.’” Nate frowns at that. “Am I wrong?” Elena asks after a moment.

"Well… no." Nate shakes his head. "Just kind of weird to think of it that way."

"You’re the one who got him a Father’s Day gift this year."

"I know, I know," Nate grumbles and flips his book open again with a scowl. "It’s just weird."

"Uh-huh." Elena smiles faintly, but before she can say anything else, the hold music cuts out, and she braces herself for an overly detailed description of the conversation with her producer.  


	92. Nate and Sully, deep in thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

Nate skims over his e-mail to Charlie before hitting send, then leans back in the chair and winces as most of his spine cracks. “Ow,” he mutters, rolling his head from side to side to ease the knots in his neck, then flips his laptop shut and gets to his feet. Almost everything’s in place. Once Marlowe’s representative, this Talbot guy, gets back to them, he and Sully can head for London. Finally finish this, after twenty years, he’ll finally see it through, finish what Drake started and…

His thoughts trail off as he comes into the living room. Sully’s sitting in his usual armchair, holding his phone in one hand and staring at it with a look of surprising intensity. Nate stops walking and waits for a few seconds, but Sully doesn’t seem to notice him. “Regretting the pizza order?” Nate asks.

Sully jumps and almost drops his phone. “Huh? Oh, no, just— just thinking,” he says.

Nate smirks. “What, another ‘lady friend’ you’re gonna call?”

Sully smiles faintly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Before Nate can ask what’s wrong, there’s a knock at the front door. “Speaking of pizza,” Sully says and gets to his feet, tossing his phone onto the coffee table before heading for the door.

Nate hesitates for a second, then crosses the room, knowing he should just leave it alone or ask, but— He picks up Sully’s phone and turns it over. It hasn’t had enough time to lock, or even turn off the screen, so he’s able to see Elena’s contact information right away.

He freezes. Part of him wonders if Sully’s been talking to her, but mostly he’s thinking that with the press of two buttons he could call her, hear her voice again, tell her—

Tell her what? Why he’s doing this? She didn’t listen when he was there, she’s not going to listen now.

The front door slams, and Nate quickly sets the phone down again and steps away. “Here, I got it,” he says, walking over to take the pizza from Sully.

"Thanks, kid," Sully says, and Nate doesn’t think he sounds suspicious. "You want a beer?"

"Yeah." Nate sets the box down on the counter and goes for the plates. Focus. "I just e-mailed Charlie— he should get back to me tomorrow morning, I think, and then we just need to get confirmation from Talbot…" 


	93. Nate and Elena, drowning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For severalsunlightmornings.

Of all the many ways he’s almost died, drowning is probably the worst. Nate twists in the murky water, trying to figure out which way is up, but the lack of light and the blow to the head before he landed in the river aren’t helping matters. His lungs are burning for lack of air, and he knows that he’s got a handful of seconds before he can’t keep himself from breathing in, and then he’ll  _really_  be screwed.

Something grabs the back of his shirt and pulls. Nate goes along with it— either it’s someone pulling him out of the water, which means he’ll be able to breathe, or it’s something that wants to eat him, which means he’s still just as screwed as he was before. Instinct takes over, and he sucks in a breath that’s only half-air as he breaks the surface. Nate coughs, choking, and flails a bit desperately in an attempt to just stay above the waterline.

"Shit, Nate, are you okay?" Elena’s still got a death-grip on his shirt, and he nods, still coughing and gasping for air. "C’mon," she says and tugs at him, pulling him towards the shore.

He half-collapses in the mud once they’re out, chest aching and still struggling to breathe. Elena pushes her soaked hair out of her eyes and crouches next to him, one hand on his shoulder as she hovers anxiously. “Nate—”

"I’m okay," he rasps. "Really." He takes a few deep breaths and looks up at her. "Thanks."

She smiles, but it doesn’t hide the tense, worried lines around her eyes. “Anytime,” she says. “Can you walk? We need to get moving before their friends show up.”

Nate nods and grabs her hand when she offers it. She pulls him to his feet, and together, they set off into the forest. 


	94. Elena and Chloe, getaway plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

Chloe drums her fingers against the steering wheel and scans the street. Elena isn’t that late to the rendezvous, not yet, but being late at all puts her on edge. It means something isn’t going according to plan, and that’s never good. It’s not necessarily bad, but it definitely isn’t good.

Her phone buzzes, and Chloe scrambles to answer. “Frazer.”

There’s static, then a handful of words she can’t make out, then, “—blocked, going around— need to— can you move the—”

Chloe scowls. “Elena? Elena, where the hell are you?”

"—east corner—"

Was that east, northeast, southeast, far too many bloody directions ending in east. “Can you hear me?” Chloe asks. “Elena?”

The call cuts out. Chloe swears under her breath and goes to call back, but before she can, her phone buzzes again. A text, this time.

_Elena F.: move car to ne corner your phone sucks_

"It’s brand new, it can’t suck already," Chloe says and tosses the phone onto the passenger seat, then drops the parking brake and throws the car into drive.


	95. Elena and Chloe, a challenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For pohutukaryl.

_[text received 1:02 p.m.] Chloe Frazer:_  r u ignoring me

_[text sent: 1:03 p.m.] Elena Fisher:_  What?

_[text received 1:03 p.m.] Chloe Frazer:_  started a words w/ friends game w/ u 2 days ago

_[text sent 1:04 p.m.] Elena Fisher:_ Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to check it. I’ve been busy.

_[text received 1:04 p.m.] Chloe Frazer:_  uh-huh

_[text received 1:04 p.m.] Chloe Frazer:_  its ok to say ur intimidated

_[text sent 1:04 p.m.] Elena Fisher:_  First, I can’t believe you’ll spell intimidated but not you’re. And second, is that a challenge?

_[text received 1:05 p.m.] Chloe Frazer:_  autocorrect and yes

_[text sent 1:05 p.m.] Elena Fisher:_ If you say so.

_[text received 5:22 p.m.] Chloe Frazer:_  how did u get that many points

_[text received 5:23 p.m.] Chloe Frazer:_ i still say vox shouldnt count its not even english

_[text sent 5:24 p.m.] Elena Fisher:_  You can start another game, if you want to try again. :)

_[text received 5:24 p.m.] Chloe Frazer:_  i will kick ur ass fisher


	96. Harry and Chloe, into the storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

She knows things are getting bad— worse, really, they’re pretty fucking bad already— when she lets herself into Harry’s hotel room and finds him smoking at his desk.

"Didn’t you quit?" she asks with false lightness.

He doesn’t look up at her, just keeps shuffling through the glossy photographs and faded maps. The latest reports from Lazarevic’s men. The mercs are doing the grunt work, but the two of them are supposed to be the brains of this operation. The experts. The ones who can find what Lazarevic is looking for. They haven’t found it yet, and Chloe’s starting to get the unpleasant sense that their cover’s blown.

"Told you," he says around the cigarette in his mouth, even as he reaches for the half-empty carton, "I smoke when I’m stressed."

Or when he’s gotten laid, if she recalls correctly, but that hasn’t been in the cards lately. They’ve both kept to their own beds lately; both of them pissed at the other over Nate, though for different reasons. Chloe’ll be damned if she gives in first. “Want some help?”

Harry snorts and holds a stack of photos out to her. “Knock yourself out.”

She leans against the windowsill and starts going through them, for lack of anything better to do. Twenty minutes and two more cigarettes pass in silence, then Harry makes a frustrated noise and pushes back from the desk. “No bloody clue what I’m supposed to be looking for,” he growls, getting up to pace across the room.

Chloe just sets her stack of pictures down beside the other piles. She doesn’t know, either. Nate probably would, but he’s in a Turkish prison and thus not available for consulting work. And once she and that friend of his manage to spring him, because they  _will_ , he’s not exactly going to be willing to lend a helping hand.

Harry stops in the middle of the room, blowing smoke at the ceiling, and Chloe sighs. There’s no way out of this, not any time soon, and she’s sure that things are going to get a lot worse before she gets out.


	97. Nate and Elena, precious treasure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

Elena’s still in bed when Nate gets up, for once, allowing herself a lazy Saturday morning after a solid week of too little sleep and long hours spent chasing interviews. His hand hits the nightstand, and he grunts in annoyance as he stands up.

Nate still reaches for his ring, most mornings. She can’t fault him for it— it’s a habit of twenty years, rolling out of bed and grabbing it off the nightstand. If she’s honest with herself, it’s still a little strange to see him without it hanging around his neck.

Sometimes she wonders what would have happened if she hadn’t saved it for him, all those years ago, if she’d just left it beside Drake’s bones. Would Nate have found something else to obsess over, or would part of his quest have involved dragging Sully back to the island to find the damn thing? Pointless to wonder, really; even back then, she’d still known him well enough to see how much he cherished it.

She watches as he swings past the dresser and grabs his wedding ring, sliding it onto his left hand without looking. Elena smiles. He might still be working on breaking one habit, but the other came back to him fast enough.

Nate pauses in the doorway and starts to say something, then cuts himself off with a yawn. “Coffee?” he finally says, one hand still covering his mouth.

Elena nods and pushes the sheets back. “Yeah,” she says, getting to her feet and going to grab her own ring. “Coffee sounds great.” 


	98. Nate and Chloe, Give Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For pohutukaryl.

Chloe lounges on the roof of the car, eyes closed, arms tucked behind her head, enjoying the warm sunlight and the steady stream of muffled, frustrated curses coming from the driver’s seat. “It’s all right to admit defeat,” she says without opening her eyes. “No one will think any less of you.”

"That is bullshit," Nate retorts. "You will  _never_  let me live it down.”

"Well, you’re the one who insisted you knew how to hotwire a car."

"I do know how," Nate says. "It’s just… been a while."

"Uh-huh."

"Shut up," he grumbles. It’s quiet for a few moments, then Nate starts swearing at the car in Spanish, as if switching languages will somehow help.

Eventually, there’s a loud thump from inside the car, and Chloe feels it shift as Nate gets out. “This car is impossible,” he declares.

Chloe opens her eyes and swings her legs over the side of the car, easily dropping to the ground. Nate stands back and watches as she slides into the driver’s seat and starts fiddling with the wires. “Uh-huh, there we go,” Chloe murmurs.

"Oh, no," Nate says, "Don’t tell me—"

The engine rumbles to life. Chloe gives him the sweetest smile she can manage and gestures at the passenger seat. “Ready to go?”


	99. Nate and Sully, question of value

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For missxdelaney.

Nate stayed silent throughout the exchange, watching from his place against the wall while Sully chatted up the clients. That was unusual, these days; now that the kid was older and, well, didn’t look so much like a kid, Sully had been trying to treat him like a full partner. He’d always been one, something Sully never would have called when he took him in back in Cartagena, but most of the people they worked with wouldn’t see it that way. Wouldn’t have respected either one of them.

There wasn’t a chance to ask questions, though, so Sully just let him lurk and exchanged the case full of carved jade idols for a case full of cash. “Pleasure doing business with you,” Sully said as he got to his feet. The men across the table just nodded, their attention already turned to their phones.

Nate fell in behind Sully as they left the private room and made for the stairs leading back down to the bar. Neither of them said a word until they’d returned to the car; Nate threw himself in the passenger seat and slammed the door behind him. Sully raised an eyebrow. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked, twisting around the stow the case on the floor behind his seat.

"Those statues were almost a thousand years old," Nate said.

Sully blinked. “What, d’you think we didn’t get enough money for ‘em?”

"No, that’s just— I don’t  _care_  about the money,” Nate snapped. “That’s all they care about, though, they’ll just sell ‘em to somebody else who doesn’t care, somebody who just…”  He trailed off with a frustrated sigh, one hand coming up to fiddle with his ring.

Sully shook his head and started the car. Where the hell was this coming from, anyway? “That’s the business, kid,” he said. “It’s not pretty, but it’s the only way people like us can make a living.” Well, not the only way— with their skills, they could be dealing in far worse than stolen artifacts. But while Sully would never claim to be the most ethical of men, he had his uncrossable lines. So did Nate.

Nate sighed. “I know, I know,” he muttered. He pulled out his journal and a pencil, and Sully caught a glimpse of a few sketches of the statues before Nate angled the journal away. Sully shrugged and put the car into drive. They’d gotten paid. The rest of it couldn’t be his concern.


	100. Young Nate and Sully, out cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

"Please be back," Nate muttered, fumbling in his pockets for the spare key to Sully’s hotel room. "Please be back, please be—"

The door swung open, and Nate darted inside. Sully was back, fortunately, passed out facedown on his bed, shoes, belt, and dogtags in a pile on the floor. Otherwise, still dressed. That was good, it would mean they could get out of here faster. “Sully!” Nate hissed, shaking his shoulder. Nothing. “Sully, c’mon, wake up!”

Sully grumbled incoherently, but didn’t wake up. Nate scowled. He wasn’t nearly big enough to drag Sully out of bed, which was kind of what they needed right now. “Sully!” Nate shook him again, harder this time.

"What?" Sully growled, eyes still closed as he reached across for the spare pillow.

Nate snatched it away. Sully was awake. That was progress. “C’mon, you need to get up, we have to go.”

Sully cracked one eye open and peered at him. “Why?”

"You remember those guys from last night that you said wouldn’t come back?" Nate asked, shooting a frantic glance at the door. Sully nodded, then groaned, the movement apparently causing him a great deal of pain. "They came back. With friends. Friends with baseball bats."

Sully squeezed his eyes shut, and for a second, Nate was afraid that he’d choose to let them break down the door and beat him to death instead of having to deal with the hangover. But then he pushed himself upright and took a deep breath. “Where were they?”

"Out in the square, I went to get breakfast and they were out there talking about tracking you down, I came back as fast as I could—"

Sully held up a hand. “You did good, kid,” he said. Nate let out a relieved breath. “Your stuff packed?”

"Pretty much."

"Okay." Sully put a hand to his eyes. "Grab your bag, come back here. There a way out over the roof?"

Nate nodded, not bothering to hide how pleased he was that Sully already trusted him to know those kind of escape routes. “It’s not too bad,” he said. “We can climb down on the next street and head for the train.”

"Good." Sully took another deep breath, then leaned down to grab his shoes. "Get your stuff. We probably don’t have much time."

"Okay." Nate nodded and ran for the door.


	101. Elena and Sully, wounded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

"Okay, I think we’re clear," Elena said, peering around the edge of the doorway. No one shouted or shot at her again. It was the best she could do.

"Great," Sully said from behind her, voice tight with pain. "Then we should keep moving—"

Elena turned to see him slowly getting to his feet. His right hand was wrapped around his left arm, but that wasn’t doing a damn thing to slow the flow of blood. “Sit back down,” she ordered, casting one last look at the hall before holstering her gun and walking over to him. “You’re not going anywhere, bleeding like that.”

He obeyed, sinking back to the floor, but not without a frown. “Elena, we have to—”

"I know." She shook her head and reached out to pry his fingers from his arm. "You’re not gonna be any help to anyone if you bleed to death, though."

Sully snorted. “I’m not gonna bleed to death,” he muttered. “I’m gonna die at a ripe old age, in bed, ideally surrounded by women a quarter my age.”

Elena rolled her eyes as she carefully tugged his blood-soaked sleeve out of the way so she could see the damage. “Looks like it’s just a graze,” she said. Lucky for him. “Bleeding pretty bad, though.”

"I noticed."

She sat back on her heels and started unbuttoning her shirt. Thank god for layers, or this would turn into the world’s most awkward rescue mission. “Do you have a knife?” she asked.

Sully shook his head. “Got a lighter.”

"That’s not gonna help me tear this into bandages." Elena shrugged off her blouse and tugged at one of the seams. "I think I can get this."

It took some work, but she managed to tear the shirt enough to pack a bunch of fabric over the wound, then tie it off securely. “That’ll have to do,” she said. “It’ll slow the bleeding, but not stop it.” If they didn’t get him medical attention soon… No. She wasn’t going to think like that. It’d be fine.

"Like we didn’t have reason to move fast before." Sully took Elena’s offered hand and got to his feet with a pained groan. "Let’s get going."

"Yeah."


	102. Nate and Sully, standards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

It would be mean to laugh. Really mean. Nate bit his tongue and did his best to keep his expression neutral while Sully dripped salt water on the tile floor.

His best wasn’t enough, apparently, as Sully glared at him. “Don’t start,” he warned.

"Aw, c’mon, Sully, it’s not that bad," Nate said, a smile tugging at his lips.

"I got thrown overboard and had to swim a mile and a half back to shore," Sully replied.

"Well, maybe you’ll be a little choosier about your dates now." Nate gave up and grinned; the glare he got in response probably would have struck him dead on the spot if looks could kill. Since they couldn’t, Nate continued cheerfully, "There’s plenty of other fish in the sea! Which you’d know better than anyone now."

Sully blinked at him, then heaved a sigh. “Goddammit,” he muttered and let out a faint chuckle. “Only us, huh?”

"Only  _you_ ,” Nate said, standing to go grab some towels. “I have standards.”

"She had a yacht! How is that not having standards?"


	103. Nate and Elena, calm and comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For fuckbiscuits on tumblr.

Elena had been on the phone and shouting for the better part of the last thirty minutes. Some kind of work thing— Nate hadn’t gotten a chance to ask yet, as when he’d poked his head into the study Elena hadn’t even noticed him— but based on what he’d overheard, it had something to do with the last story she filed and someone else being “an asshole who can’t handle the fact that I outrank him.”

The shouting stopped, and Nate looked up from the book he wasn’t reading when the study door wrenched open and Elena stormed out. He got to his feet as she stomped through the living room and into the kitchen. By the time he caught up to her, she had the fridge open and was rummaging around for something.

"Behind the orange juice," Nate said, assuming she was looking for the beer. Elena mumbled something that might have been thanks before stepping back with a bottle in her hand. "What happened?" Nate asked.

Elena set the bottle on the counter with a heavy thud. “This new assistant producer,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if he was just a sexist prick or if he didn’t like me specifically, and I don’t know, maybe it’s both, but he called our manager throwing a fit because he couldn’t find the B-roll from the Sao Paulo story. He said I hadn’t submitted it, and it turned into this whole  _thing_ , and…” She trailed off with an irritated groan and dug the heels of her palms into her eyes.

Nate winced. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d offer to punch him for you, but I’m pretty sure you’d rather do that yourself.”

Elena let out a sharp laugh. “Yeah, I really would.” She lowered her hands, then shook her head. “He wants to be an asshole, fine, I can deal with that, but undermining  _my work_ …”

"Yeah."  Nate reached past her and picked up the beer, twisting the cap off before handing it to her. It wasn’t much, but he hated feeling like there was  _nothing_  he could do.

Elena took the bottle with a faint smile. “Thanks.” She took a drink and heaved a sigh. “I’m gonna go write an e-mail, save it, then in a few hours write another e-mail that will be far less likely to be me fired. Or arrested.”

"Good plan." 


	104. Sully and Young Nate, slow down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

Nate was a blue and white blur in the trees ahead, racing along the path and bounding over fallen logs. Sully walked after him at a more sedate pace. He’d forgotten how much damn energy kids had. “Shit, kid, where’s the fire,” he muttered, ducking under a low hanging branch.

"C’mon, Sully!" Nate called, glancing over his shoulder. "We’re almost—"

He cut off with a startled yelp and disappeared from view as he tumbled forward. “Nate!” Sully broke into a run, heart pounding in his ears. “Nate, are you okay?”

Sully skidded to a stop at the path’s abrupt end. There had probably been a bridge there, once, back when there’d been water and not just a dry riverbed. Nate was sprawled in the leaves and brambles at the bottom of the drop-off, blinking dazedly up at the sky. “Ouch,” he said as Sully carefully climbed down to him.

He didn’t look hurt at first glance. Sully crouched down by his side. “You all right?”

"Yeah," Nate said. He grimaced and sat up, brushing leaves out of his hair. "Yeah, I’m okay."

Sully let out a relieved breath and straightened up. “I told you to slow down,” he said, holding out his hand to help Nate up.


	105. Elena and Chloe, future plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For pohutukaryl.

"So," Elena begins, "what’s next for you?"

Chloe pauses in fiddling with the radio and glances over at her. They’re sitting in the car, waiting for Nate and Sully to pick up food so they can go back to her flat and have dinner. It’s the trio’s last night in London. “Not sure,” she replies. “Might go back to Melbourne for a bit, once Charlie’s got his feet under him again. Haven’t been home in a while.” 

Elena nods. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Chloe gives up on finding a decent station and shuts the radio off. “How about you, Sunshine?” she asks. “Got any plans?”

She catches Elena smiling at the nickname. “Well, technically, I’ve got another seven months on my contract in Yemen,” she says. “So… I don’t know. Kind of depends on what my manager says.”

Chloe huffs out a laugh. “Right, you and your normal job.”

"Well, we can’t all raid libraries full of artifacts and become fabulously rich," Elena says with a grin.

"I don’t know about fabulously rich," Chloe says. They picked Marlowe’s library down to the bones, and Charlie’s already started making inquiries about quickly and quietly offloading everything. "It’s a decent amount, split four ways, but it’ll hardly let me retire from this life of crime." Chloe glances towards the restaurant. No sign of the boys. "Not an easy job to quit, truth be told."

"Mm." Elena glances away, and after a moment, Chloe winces. Nate’s inability to quit is what’s landed them all here, walking on eggshells around each other.

"It’ll all work out," Chloe says. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Nate and Sully emerge from the restaurant, both carrying large paper bags.

"Yeah," Elena says with a nod and a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. "I’m sure it will."


	106. Elena and Sully, lousy patient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

"You don’t have to get up," Sully said, crossing the small room to Elena’s bedside. "If you need something, I can get it—"

Elena paused, sitting on the edge of the bed and breathing hard. “I’m fine,” she said. Sully just raised an eyebrow at her, and she sighed. “I’ve been stuck in this bed for almost a week—”

"Except for yesterday when you spent half a day walking around the village and then slept for fourteen hours," Sully replied. "Nearly gave Nate a goddamn heart attack."

Elena looked away, her shoulders slumping. “I’m just… tired of being stuck here,” she said. “Doing nothing.” Her gaze flicked to the window behind Sully, where the sounds of the villagers beginning to rebuild drifted into the room. He sighed. He didn’t know Elena terribly well yet, though hopefully that would change soon. But he could tell she had a responsible streak a mile wide.

"You got hurt," Sully said. "You’re allowed to do nothing."

She made a face. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Give it time,” he said. “You’ll be up and saving the world again in no time.”

Elena sighed, seeming to admit defeat, and sank back onto the bed. “Would you mind getting me some water?” she asked.

"Sure thing."


	107. Adventure Family, a place to belong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

Nate shut the front door behind him and sighed. Long day, but at least the house smelled good. He wasn’t sure what Elena was making for dinner, but it definitely involved garlic. “Hey, I’m home,” he called as he dumped the shopping bags on the couch. He’d put his purchases away later.

Elena practically bounced into the kitchen doorway and beamed at him. “Hey,” she said, leaning up to give him a kiss. “You finish up all your birthday errands?”

He rolled his eyes. “They were just regular errands.”

"But you did them on your birthday, so they’re birthday errands." She grinned and tugged at his hand. "Got a surprise for you."

Nate tried to internalize a wince. He wasn’t really a fan of surprises. Surprises were usually bad. Still, Elena probably didn’t have a bomb in the kitchen, so he let her pull him through the door. Then he stopped, blinked, and let out a startled laugh. “Sully!”

"Hey, kid." Sully stood up from the kitchen table, and Nate met him halfway for a hug.

"I thought you weren’t back until next week!" Nate said. It wasn’t unusual for one of them to miss their semi-weekly dinners due to work or travel, so he hadn’t really said anything when Sully told them he’d be in Johannesburg at the end of August. But, well, he’d been a little disappointed that Sully wasn’t going to be there on his birthday.

Sully stepped back and shrugged. “Wrapped up my business there early,” he said. “Got back this morning. The surprise was her idea.”

Nate glanced back at Elena, who was clearly trying to look innocent. He had a feeling that there had been more planning involved than Sully was letting on… but honestly, he didn’t care. He had his— his  _family_ home with him for his birthday. “Thanks,” he said, smiling at them both. Elena smiled back, and Sully patted his shoulder. “So, what’s for dinner?”

"Birthday dinner."

"Really, Sully? You too?"


	108. Young Nate, on the road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For fizzyyellowflower.

It was just a scraped knee. He’d had worse, it was just a scrape, and he was so  _stupid_  to be crying over it.

Nate scrubbed a hand over his eyes and prodded gingerly at the edges of the wound. He’d been running to get away from the road and out of sight of the cops, and while he’d managed to get clear, he’d tripped and torn up his knee in the process. And it  _hurt_ , dammit, it hurt a lot and these were the only clothes he had, he’d have to steal another pair of jeans eventually.

He sniffled and looked around. It was starting to get dark, and he had no idea how far it was to the next rest stop. He hadn’t seen one all day, so hopefully he’d come up to one soon. Not for the first time since he’d run away, he found himself wondering what the hell he was doing. Yeah, the orphanage had been terrible, but was it worse than this?

Nate scowled. Didn’t matter. He was out here now, and if he went back… He wasn’t going to give in. He could do this. And he was already more than halfway to Colombia, he’d made it so far… He could take care of himself.

With a pained grimace, he got to his feet and started limping along the side of the highway.


	109. Nate/Elena, heartfelt apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For elliedrake.

Elena bit her lip as the phone rang. Hopefully Nate wouldn’t be too upset—

The ringing stopped abruptly. “Elena!?” Nate demanded.

"Yeah, it’s me," she said with a wince.

"Oh, thank god," he breathed. "What the hell happened? Did you lose your phone, or was it something with the flight…?"

Elena squeezed her eyes shut. When he’d dropped her off at the airport a day and a half ago, she’d promised to call when she landed. “No,” she said. “I, uh. I forgot.”

Nate went silent for a few, long seconds. “You forgot,” he repeated flatly.

"It’s been crazy over here," she said. "I got off the plane and jumped into a van with the team. This is the first time I’ve been in my hotel room." It had been a very, very long eighteen hours, and she was pretty sure that she was only conscious through the power of coffee.

"And you couldn’t find a minute to call me?" Nate snapped. "Jesus, Elena, I’ve been trying to figure out if your plane got shot down or something, and you were just too busy to call?"

She rubbed a hand over her face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I got caught up in everything here, and I forgot. I’m sorry.” She knew how much Nate worried about her, and not calling when she said she would was a surefire way to make him panic. But her phone had been in her bag, and that had ended up stowed under a bench while they were driving around the city. It was only when she got to her hotel room and saw the twenty-two missed calls that she realized what had happened.

Nate let out a sharp breath, and Elena bit her tongue to keep from offering up more explanations. He had every right to be pissed at her. “Okay,” he finally said. “I… okay.”

"I’m sorry."

"I know," Nate said. "I’m— I’m glad you’re okay."

"Yeah, I’m fine," Elena said. "Just tired, it’s been a long day."

Nate let out an irritated “hmph” at that, and she cringed again. No doubt it had been a long day for him, too. “Guess I should let you go so you can sleep,” he said.

"No, I’m— I’m fine, I can talk for a bit," she said quickly. "If you want."

He was quiet again for another few moments. Elena had just about resigned herself to hanging up and going to bed knowing that he was angry with her when he spoke. “Yeah, if you can, I’d… yeah.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

There was an awkward silence, then Nate cleared his throat. “So, uh, what’s going on over there?”

"It’s an unofficial evacuation, that’s why we had to move fast, we’ve been trying to catch people before they leave…" 


	110. Nate/Elena, mistletoe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [a post on tumblr](http://rhiannon42.tumblr.com/post/105866319558/wintersoldeirs-important-otp-christmas): which of your OTP hangs mistletoe everywhere to maximize Christmas kisses?

Elena paused outside the front door and rummaged around in her bag for her keys. She told herself every time this happened that she needed to put them in a dedicated pocket or something. And then next time she left the house, she’d just throw them in her bag and do it all over again.

She finally found her keys and started unlocking the door. Through the living room window, she saw Nate suddenly pop up from behind the couch. He must’ve been lying down and reading, she guessed. Elena chuckled to herself as he vaulted over the back of the couch and ran for the door. He was such a puppy sometimes.

 

“Miss me?” Elena asked as she opened the door. Nate skidded to a halt right in front of her and held up one finger. It took her a second to realize that he was pointing up, rather than telling her to wait for something. She glanced up at the ceiling. “Is that mistletoe?”

“Yep,” Nate said, clearly proud of himself. Elena chuckled and stood up on her toes to give him a kiss. “And yes, I did,” he added after they parted.

He finally stepped back to let her come inside, and she pushed the door shut with a relieved sigh. “Well, lucky you, my holiday break officially starts today,” she said. “I don’t have to go into the studio for three weeks.” She’d still be working, of course, but all from the comfort of her own study. Or living room couch, although that tended to end in her laptop getting ignored in favor of cuddling.

“Cool.”

Elena nodded and headed down the hall to the bedroom. She dumped her bag beside her dresser, pulled off her shoes and belt, then rolled her head to the side, grimacing at how stiff her neck felt. She knew that by the end of the three weeks, she’d probably be bouncing off the walls, but right now, a long break sounded great. And starting it off with a back rub from Nate would be—

She almost ran into him again as she went to leave the bedroom. “Gyah, what is it?” she asked, falling back a step.

Nate just pointed up again. Elena looked to see another sprig of mistletoe tacked above their bedroom door. “How much of this did you get?” she asked suspiciously, even as she moved back towards him.

He grinned at her and leaned in to kiss her again. “Enough,” he said just before their lips met.

Elena raised an eyebrow at him when he drew back. His grin didn’t falter, and she stepped past him to check the rest of the hallway— and yep, he’d put mistletoe in every single doorway, even the spare bedroom that they almost never went in. “Really?”

“You said you wanted to decorate for Christmas.”

She did, although ideally with more than just mistletoe. Elena shook her head. “I guess I should be glad you actually decorated with it,” she said. “Instead of just carrying some around with you to hold up.”

Nate blinked at her once, then his eyes lit up with glee. He spun on his heel and ran back towards the living room. Elena groaned. “That wasn’t a suggestion!” she called after him.

He caught up with her again in the kitchen door, a sprig of mistletoe in his hand. She sighed, smiling in spite of herself, as he held it out over her head. “There’s already some here,” she said, pointing up at the mistletoe he’d hung in the door.

“I think that means two kisses,” he said.

“Does it now.”

Nate stepped closer to her, still holding the mistletoe up over them, and wrapped his other arm around her waist. “It’s tradition,” he said with a grin.

Elena chuckled and looped her arms around his neck. “Can’t argue with that.”  


	111. Nate/Elena, reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For abhorsen327. Aggressively domestic fluff ahoy.

Elena came into the bathroom to find Nate almost nose-to-nose with his reflection. “Something wrong?” she asked, reaching for her toothbrush.

Nate frowned and tilted his head to the side, then turned to her. “Are these grey hairs?” he asked, pointing at his temples.

She barely glanced up from unscrewing the cap on her toothpaste. “Probably,” she said.

“What do you mean, probably?”

“You’re thirty-six,” she said.

“So?” Nate turned to scowl at his reflection again. “That’s not old enough for grey hair.”

“Apparently it is,” Elena said, then stuck her toothbrush in her mouth in the hopes of escaping the conversation.

Nate continued prodding at his hair, then sighed. “Still don’t think I’m old enough for this,” he muttered.

Elena shrugged. “I bin ids a gub lub on do,” she said around the toothbrush.

“What?”

Elena took the toothbrush out of her mouth and spat into the sink. “I said, I think it’s a good look on you,” she said and tapped the side of his head with her free hand.

He wrinkled his nose at her. “This is like the glasses thing, isn’t it.”

“Yup.” Elena paused to swish water around her mouth, then spat it out. “You’re gonna be all hot and distinguished-looking when you hit forty.”

Nate frowned. “Wait, so what am I now?”

“Hot and ruggedly handsome.”

He considered that for a few moments. “I guess that works.”

“Also kinda dorky, but I don’t see that ever changing.”

Nate rolled his eyes and glanced in the mirror again, then ran a hand over his jaw. “Do I need to shave?”

“How should I know?” Elena grabbed a towel to dry off her face. Nate grinned and stepped over to her side of the counter, then rubbed his cheek against her shoulder. She yelped. “Nate! Stop it, that tickles!”

He laughed and turned his head to kiss her shoulder. “So?”

Elena tossed the towel back onto the counter and reached up to rub her fingers against his jaw. “Eh, you can leave it,” she said, stepping away from him and heading for the door. “I like a little stubble burn sometimes, anyway.”

Nate grinned. “That can be arranged,” he said and started to follow her back to the bedroom.

She turned and planted one hand against his chest. “Brush your teeth before you come to bed,” she said. Nate heaved a sigh and went back to the sink, while Elena just chuckled and headed for her side of the bed.


	112. Elena, planning a rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For elliedrake.

She should have acted faster. Shouldn’t have waited until Sully was an hour late to go back out into the streets and start looking, to start talking to her contacts. She should have known something was wrong right away. She shouldn’t have suggested splitting up to look for Nate in the first place.

There’d been no sign of Nate since he’d run off into the streets, and there was nothing she could do for him except ask every person she knew to keep an eye out for him. If Sully hadn’t been taken, then maybe… Pointless to wonder. She’d done what she could for Nate. She had to focus on what she could still do for Sully.

It actually had been rather easy to track Marlowe’s people— the black suits and red ties stood out in Aden’s streets and in people’s memories. So Elena knew that Sully had been grabbed and escorted into a car in one of the markets on the north side of the city. She knew that most of Marlowe’s people had left the city a in a massive convoy few hours later. All of which would have been a great help, if she hadn’t found out six hours after their departure.

It didn’t leave her with a lot of options. Elena leaned on her contacts in the government, at the airport, called in favors and made promises, offering whatever she could to get the information she needed. It took a solid day and night with next to no sleep before she got her hands on a schedule and a flight plan for a plane that, officially, didn’t exist.

Elena spread the map out on the table and took a large drink of coffee. The convoy was a question mark— she wasn’t sure how fast they’d be able to travel through the desert, or what direction they were traveling, exactly. So she’d have to count on going out with the rest of the cargo. No time to get a parachute of her own, but a cargo plane like that would have plenty of them stashed away. Unlike Sully’s—

She shook her head against the memories of that long-ago day on a distant Pacific island. She had to focus. She had to figure out how she was going to get onto the plane in the first place. She had to— Her train of thought cut off abruptly as her phone rang. Her heart pounded painfully, just as it had every time her phone had rung since Nate and Sully had gone missing. It could be a contact with more information about the plane. It could be someone telling her they’d found Nate’s body.

She answered her phone on the second ring. “Elena Fisher.”


	113. Nate/Elena, holiday traditions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

The Christmas Eve movie marathon wasn’t quite a tradition, but it definitely had the potential to become one. Christmas day, they spent with Sully, but for the past couple years, they’d spent the night before camped on the couch with popcorn and spiked eggnog and a selection of movies that at least started off Christmas themed. Last year they’d ended the marathon with  _The Empire Strikes Back,_ so who knew where they’d wind up.

Nate hadn’t really been paying much attention to their drinks— Elena had put herself in charge of the eggnog, and he was perfectly happy to let her keep refilling their glasses. So it took a little while for him to realize that her giggling didn’t really correspond to anything funny happening in the movie. But when she started snickering during the credits, he glanced over at her. “How much have you had?”

Elena shrugged. “I stopped counting after, um, five,” she said. “Or six.”

Nate raised his eyebrows at her. She giggled again and bumped her head against his shoulder. “Oh, you are  _drunk_ ,” he said, smirking. The random headbutting only started after Elena had had quite a lot to drink.

She chose not to reply and instead started humming to herself as she leaned forward to refill her glass again. “…Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree, how something something somethiiiiing…” She trailed off and giggled, then poked Nate in the arm. “How’s it go?”

"I don’t know."

Elena heaved a disappointed sigh, then leaned over Nate and reached for the remote. “Gimme.”

"Why?" Nate asked suspiciously and pushed the remote a little further out of her reach.

"Gonna put on Christmas music." She half-flung herself across Nate’s legs in an attempt to get to the remote, splashing eggnog all over both of their shirts in the process. "Oops," Elena muttered and set her glass down on the coffee table with exaggerated care.

Nate looked down at himself, sighed, then grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked it off over his head. He balled it up and swiped it over his chest to get any stray eggnog. Elena hadn’t moved any, and he glanced over at her to see that she was eyeing him contemplatively. “Do not spill eggnog on my pants just so I’ll take them off, too.”

Elena pouted. “You’re no fun.”

"I’m lots of fun. Now give me your shirt." 


	114. Elena & Chloe, the dangers of mobile games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For thethiefandtheangel.

Chloe Frazer [received 18:44] pls tell me ur not busy rn

Elena Fisher [sent 18:44] No, I’m not. Why?

Chloe Frazer [received 18:44] really bored. started new wwf game. ur move.

Elena Fisher [sent 18:46] Your move. Waiting on a pickup?

Chloe Frazer [received 18:47] ur move. no. stuck on top of cliff.

Elena Fisher [sent 18:47] You’re what?

Chloe Frazer [received 18:48] car chase out of city, car stalled, climbed cliff, waiting 4 guys w/ guns to go away

Elena Fisher [sent 18:48] And you’re playing Words with Friends with me while you’re waiting? Is that safe?

Chloe Frazer [received 18:49] playing w/ charlie 2. v safe, they dont know im here. still ur move.

Elena Fisher [sent 18:50] I really don’t want to be distracting you right now.

Chloe Frazer [received 18:50] YOUR. MOVE.

Chloe Frazer [received 18:52] oh shit brb

Elena Fisher [sent 18:52] Are you okay?

Elena Fisher [sent 18:57] You better not have gotten yourself killed over a damn Words With Friends game. 

Elena Fisher [sent 19:03] Text me as soon as you get this. I mean it.

Chloe Frazer [received 19:43] sorry had 2 run, back in city now, getting stitches

Elena Fisher [sent 19:43] Oh, thank god. Are you all right?

Chloe Frazer [received 19:44] im fine sunshine dont worry.

Chloe Frazer [received 19:45] still ur move


	115. Adventure family, Christmas with family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For abhorsen327.

Sully opened the front door and blinked. “Nice sweaters,” he finally said.

"His idea," Elena said, pointing at Nate, at the exact same time that Nate tilted his head at her and said, "Her idea."

Elena shot him an incredulous look. “Don’t pin this on me, you were  _proud_  of your tacky Christmas sweaters this morning.”

Nate grinned. “There’s one for you too,” he said, indicating the paper bags he and Elena were both carrying. “Somewhere in here.”

Sully shook his head and stepped aside. “Is that all for dinner?” he asked. He was an okay cook, knew how to make a few things, but nothing that really qualified for a proper Christmas dinner. Elena had offered to cook, and by the looks of it, she’d brought half the grocery store with her.

"Mostly," Elena said as they headed for the kitchen. "There’s presents in here, too."

Sully chuckled and took one of the bags from Nate. “You two want eggnog?”

Nate nodded, but Elena winced and shook her head. “I’ll pass.”

"You sure?" Sully asked, opening up the cabinet and grabbing a pair of glasses.

"Yeah, I’m… I’m good."

Nate snickered, and Elena shot him a dirty look. “She had way too much last night,” Nate stage-whispered to Sully.

Elena pulled a box of stuffing out of the bag and rolled her eyes. “I was a  _little_  hungover this morning,” she said.

"She didn’t get out of bed until almost noon," Nate explained. Sully laughed again and opened the fridge, looking for the eggnog.

"It’s Christmas and we don’t have kids yet," Elena said. "I can sleep in as late as I want."

Sully blinked. He hadn’t ever asked either of them about their plans for having kids— not exactly his business, and the subject hadn’t really come up. He hadn’t expected Elena to mention it so casually. Nate didn’t look flustered at all, either, just held out his hand to take the carton of eggnog from Sully. Well, all right. If they’d worked that out, then good for them. “Yes, you can, sweetheart,” he agreed.

Elena beamed at him. “Thank you, Sully,” she said. “At least  _somebody_ here supports me.”

Nate laughed and walked over to her. “What needs to go in the fridge?” he asked, bending down to kiss the top of her head briefly.

"Uh… the butter, the heavy cream— here, start with these, I’ll get the rest out…"

Sully left them to it and slipped back into the living room. Christmas with family needed appropriate music. The record player still worked, and he was pretty sure he had a couple Christmas albums tucked away somewhere. 


	116. Nate/Elena, journals and portraits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid.

Between the two of them, they had a book collection that could rival some public libraries. Unfortunately, they didn’t have nearly as much shelf space as most libraries, and when Nate suggested putting a bookshelf in the kitchen as a solution to the stacks of books that littered the floor, Elena put her foot down and said they had to get rid of some things.

Which was why they were spending a Saturday afternoon sitting on the floor in the study, going through books and sighing mournfully. Elena pushed a stack of novels towards the donate pile and glanced over at Nate, who was frowning at one of his journals. “You’re not gonna get rid of those, are you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, eyes skimming over whatever notes were on the page. “I mean. I don’t really need them, but…”

Elena scooted close enough to peer at the journal, then tried not to wince. Full of notes on Drake and Dee and missions to Arabia— she hadn’t seen this one, but she knew exactly when he’d been using it. Nate flipped the page to reveal a detailed sketch of… “I don’t know what that is, either,” she said, tilting her head to the side.

"I thought it was a popcorn machine."

"I think you’re wrong."

Nate chuckled, then thumbed through the remaining pages until he hit the end of his notes. “Not sure if there’s anything…” He trailed off as the journal fell open on two pages of his drawings. Most of them were concerned with what they’d found beneath the cistern— Elena remembered the creepy floating body parts all too well— but the others…

She wasn’t sure when he’d have had the chance to draw her once, much less twice, in the handful of hours between her collecting them from the airport and his disappearance into the city. But he’d managed a pair of fairly detailed portraits, and without thinking, Elena reached out to angle the journal towards herself so she could see better. She loved seeing his drawings of her; the way that he saw her said ‘I love you’ as clear as the words themselves.

"Okay," Nate said after a few moments, "I’m keeping this one."


	117. Nate and Sully, persistent calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree.

Sully slammed the phone down, hard enough to make Nate jump and send his pencil skidding across the page. “Damn, Sully, what the hell?” he asked, twisting around to peer over the back of the couch.

Sully was at the desk, shoulders tense as he rubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Nate glanced at his journal, then shook his head and flipped it closed. “Something wrong?” he asked as he stood up.

"Nah, it’s just— few very persistent callers," Sully said.

Nate raised an eyebrow and leaned against the wall by the desk. “I’m guessing they’re not very persistent women.”

Sully let out a sharp laugh. “If only, kid.”

Nate might not know exactly who was calling, but he could take a guess why. Wouldn’t be the first time Sully had gotten himself in some financial hole. But he always got himself back out. “C’mon,” Nate said, clapping Sully on the shoulder. “Let’s head out. First round’s on me.”

Sully glanced at the clock. “Kinda early, don’t you think?”

"What, you doing anything more fun than sitting at a bar and flirting with women half your age?" Nate asked. "Anybody important calls, they can leave a message." And it’d certainly help Sully’s frame of mind to get him away from the phone for a night.

"Well, all right," Sully said, feigning reluctance, as he pushed back his chair. "Second round’s on me, though."

"Uh-huh." They’d see about that.


	118. Nate and Sully, dropping in for a visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For elliedrake. Inspired by a long-standing headcanon of mine, in which Nate and Sully maybe have code words to deal with their inability to talk about feelings.

Sully jumped a bit at the sudden knock on the front door. He wasn’t expecting anyone— tonight was going to be a rare, quiet night in. Very quiet, honestly. Nate had moved out to his own apartment three days ago, and Sully still wasn’t used to how quiet the house was without someone else rattling around.

He muted the TV before standing and heading for the door. Probably just some kid trying to sell something—

Or not. “Nate?” Sully said, blinking.

Nate gave him a sheepish grin. “Hi.”

Sully frowned. “We didn’t have plans or something, did we?” he asked. He was pretty sure they didn’t, but he could’ve forgotten.

"Huh? Oh. No. No plans. I just, um." Nate cleared his throat and shifted his weight. "I, uh, I ran outta beer."

Sully was pretty sure that there were at least two grocery stores and twice as many liquor stores between his place and Nate’s. “Uh-huh,” he said. This had nothing to do with beer, and they both knew it. Might as well leave the kid’s dignity intact, though. “What’re you doing knocking?” Sully said and stepped aside so Nate could come in. “You still have keys.”

Nate’s shoulders immediately slumped in relief. “Yeah, but I don’t live here anymore,” he said as he came inside. “Seemed rude to just barge in.”

"It’s not rude," Sully said and shut the door.

Nate snorted. “You say that now, but just watch, in a month or two I’m gonna walk in while you’ve got a ‘lady friend’ over. Bet you’ll change your tune, then.”

Sully chuckled. “Fair point.” He clapped Nate on the shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s get you that beer you wanted.”


	119. Nate/Elena, merciful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid. The prompt: send me an adjective and I'll write two fics, one fluffy and one sad.

“Gyaaaaggghhh!!”

Elena paused typing in mid-word and slowly looked up. That shriek had been more surprised than pained, so she wasn’t quite sure if she needed to go investigate. “Nate?” she called. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he replied in a tone that said otherwise. 

Elena frowned and stood up, heading for the kitchen. “What did you set on fire this time?” she asked.

“Nothing yet,” Nate said darkly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand while casting suspicious looks around the counters. “A spider landed on my head.”

“Oh.” That explained the shrieking, at least. “Where is it now?”

“I don’t know.” Nate twisted his head around, trying to look at his back. “Not sure if it jumped away, or if it’s still on me.”

Elena shook her head, trying not to smile. “Hold still and let me look,” she said. Nate obediently froze while she circled around behind him. There was, indeed, a smallish spider on the back of his shirt. “Hang on a second,” she said and grabbed a piece of scrap paper off the table.

Nate squirmed slightly. “Just kill it,” he said as Elena carefully scooped the spider onto the paper.

She ignored him and instead walked to the open window, then pushed aside the screen and deposited the spider outside. “Happy now?”

“No. It’s got my scent. It could come back in here and jump on me again.”

Elena rolled her eyes. “If you’re really that worried about spiders, you could always clean the ceiling light,” she pointed out.

Nate glanced upward, then shrugged and went back to the fridge. “Lunch first.”

———–

Nate had a lot of time to think, sitting at Elena’s bedside and waiting for her to wake up (she would wake up, she  _had_  to, she couldn’t leave him like this). And as he sat in Schaefer’s home, listening to the sounds of funeral prayers and construction outside, he wondered if he should have just pulled the trigger and killed Lazarevic himself.

It was only a little bit about revenge– he’d be lying if he said it wouldn’t have felt good, in the moment, to stop the man himself. But he was more worried that somehow, impossible as it seemed, Lazarevic had survived. The warlord had destroyed so much in his quest for power, and at the end, he’d gained it, at least for himself. If he made it out of there somehow…

Nate scrubbed a hand over his face and slumped in his chair. He’d refused to shoot Lazarevic because he hadn’t needed to– he’d seen the Guardians coming and made his choice. But if they hadn’t been there… Lazarevic was a monster, Elena had been right, and in the moment there was only one way to stop him. Maybe he should have done it. Made sure that he’d never come back and hurt anyone again.

He sighed and reached out to brush a strand of hair off Elena’s face. “You have to wake up,” he murmured. “You have to tell me if I did the right thing.”


	120. Nate/Elena, brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For fuckbiscuits. The prompt: send me an adjective and I'll write two fics, one fluffy and one sad.

So… this wasn’t exactly the best situation he’d ever found himself in. Nate’s feet slid against the statue, searching for secure footing, as the helicopter swung through the air over the island. He wasn’t exactly sure where Navarro was taking the statue– and Elena– but Nate couldn’t let him escape with either one.

One of Navarro’s goons leaned out of the helicopter and started firing wildly at him. Nate winced and shifted over, trying to use the statue for cover. How bullet-resistant was gold, anyway?

Just as he started to worry about the merc shooting through the ropes and sending him plummeting to his death, the man went flying out of the helicopter. Had to have been Elena– maybe she’d gotten free and pushed him out. Nate had a split-second to grin in outright admiration before the helicopter dipped suddenly, causing Nate to lose his grip and slide down the side of the statue. So long as he landed on the boat, he’d probably be okay. And he had to hope that Elena would be, too.

——-

Bravery, Elena had read somewhere, wasn’t the absence of fear; it was being afraid and doing it anyway. 

She was afraid of losing Nate (again, for good), of losing Sully, of being helpless. So by that definition, staying behind when Nate had begged her to and facing all those fears should have been brave. Right?

Elena hung up the phone and scrubbed a hand over her face. It had been days since Nate had jumped onto that plane and disappeared, days of sitting and waiting and clinging to hope. She didn’t know what it was, staying here, but it sure as hell wasn’t brave.


	121. Nate/Elena, when you thought I was asleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid: things you said when you thought I was asleep.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

Nate worried at his lower lip, holding himself as still as possible as he watched Elena sleep. She’d been staying with him since they’d gotten back from Nepal, but she was flying back home on Friday and he still hadn’t said it. Still hadn’t told her that he loved her.

He’d managed to say it in his own head. He’d even indirectly admitted it to Chloe. And he  _needed_  to tell her. He knew that. He needed to tell her before she left if he wanted to have a chance at making this thing between them work. He needed to tell her because he’d almost lost her and the thought of it terrified him down to his bones. He need to tell her because he wanted her to know that being with her made him happier than he’d ever been, that he’d give her the world if he could, that maybe he wasn’t worth much but he was all hers, if she’d have him.

And he’d been trying. He’d been trying so hard to get the words out, but every time he thought about it his throat closed up. Because telling her he loved her felt an awful lot like painting a target on his chest and then handing her a knife.

She was asleep, though. Maybe he could practice. Say it now, while she couldn’t hear, and maybe it’d come easier when he said it for real. Nate took a deep breath and raised a hand to gently run through her hair. “I… Elena, I…”

Elena stirred slightly, shifting just a little closer to him and pressing her fingers into his back, and he choked. Nate swallowed hard, then pulled her towards him, her head tucked under his chin, and stared into the darkness of his bedroom. Tomorrow. He could try again tomorrow.

He closed his eyes and told himself she was just sighing in her sleep, not in disappointment.


	122. Nate/Elena, while we were driving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For ohcrapmyfangirlisshowingisntit: things you said while we were driving.

“You should’ve–” Elena grunted as Nate swung around a hairpin turn, throwing her against the door, “–let me drive.”

“I’m doing  _fine_ ,” Nate replied through gritted teeth. Something exploded on the narrow path behind them, and he stomped on the gas pedal. “Come on–”

Elena twisted around to peer through the back window, then reached across Nate to grab the gun out of his holster. “Try not to hit anything that’ll take my head off,” she said and leaned out the window.

“We’re in a jungle,” Nate retorted. “I can only swerve so much–”

Elena started firing at the truck behind them, and anything else he might’ve said got lost under the sound of gunfire and squealing tires. She emptied the clip without even slowing their pursuers down and swung back into the jeep. “Dammit,” she muttered, dropping the spent magazine to the floor.

“You might wanna buckle up,” Nate said. Elena looked up from the gun to see a cliff edge rapidly approaching. There was another cliff about ten feet or so beyond it, but in between was a much bigger drop than Elena wanted to contemplate.

“Uh, Nate…” Elena began as she shoved the empty gun into her own holster. “Are you sure about this?”

“I did it with Sully earlier,” he said and hit the gas again. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this!”


	123. Nate & Sully, that I wasn't meant to hear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree: things you said that I wasn't meant to hear

Nate stumbled away from them, wild-eyed and pale, holding a hand up as if to ward them off. Something fell from his fingers, and Sully stopped to pick it up. A tiny dart, the needle flecked with blood. “Ah, shit,” he muttered. Not again, not now, not  _him…_

“What’s wrong with him?” Elena asked.

“They drugged him,” Sully said and dropped the dart. He barely heard Elena’s horrified “What!?” as he approached Nate. Kid was almost doubled over, his hands covering his face, mumbling to himself. They needed to get him off the streets, and fast. 

“C’mon, son,” he said, only realizing what he’d said too late. He hadn’t slipped up in front of Nate like that for twenty years, trained himself to call him ‘kid’ instead of something that was probably more accurate. Nate had never reacted well to it, for all that it would’ve been an easier explanation for why Sully suddenly had a teenager following him around. So he’d been careful to never call Nate that where he could hear.

Nate was probably too far gone on whatever was in that dart to realize what Sully had said, though. Sully grabbed his arm, planning to lead him to the stairs, but before he could make a move Nate shoved him away, snarling and staggering backwards. He couldn’t even get close to him again before Nate shoved through a gate and vanished into the crowd.

“Oh, god,” Elena breathed and ran after him. Sully swore under his breath and followed.


	124. Nate/Elena, after you kissed me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For naforti: things you said after you kissed me.

Elena drew back from Nate and narrowed her eyes slightly. “You taste like strawberries,” she said suspiciously.

She could see the split-second of panic flash through his eyes before he grinned. “Really? That’s weird.”

“You’re a bad liar who tastes like the ice cream I bought for myself,” Elena replied and pushed herself up off the couch.

Nate vaulted over the back of it and ran ahead of her to the kitchen. He flung himself in front of the fridge and planted his shoulders against the freezer door. Elena came to a stop in front of him and planted her hands on her hips. “Nate.”

“You shouldn’t look in there,” he said, trying not to smile and failing. “It’s, uh. It’s broken.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Nate. Move.” He shook his head and folded his arms. Fine. He’d made his choice. Elena took a step closer to him, then reached out to tickle his sides. 

Nate yelped and tried to bat her hands away while giggling helplessly. “No, no, no no no no, no, stop, stop–”

Elena dodged his flailing and continued the assault until he finally sank to the ground, curling up in a protective ball and continuing to giggle. She leaned over him and pulled the freezer open, then grabbed her pint of ice cream. Just from picking it up, she could tell it was too light, and she hastily yanked the lid off. “Oh my god, Nate, there’s almost none left!”

“Sorry,” he mumbled from the floor. “I got hungry.”

She groaned and tossed the ice cream back in the freezer. “Jerk.”

“I’ll buy you more,” he said. “Just no more tickling.”

Elena sighed and held her hands out for him to take. “Deal.”


	125. Nate & Sully, too many miles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree: things you said with too many miles between us.

Nate’s fingers shook as he punched in the numbers on Elena’s satellite phone. Good thing she’d had it, or they’d have been completely isolated up in the village. Not that there was anyone else who could help, but… he needed to make the call.

He put the phone to his ear and scrubbed his free hand over his face, wincing as the motion opened up the cuts and scrapes left over from Shambhala. The call finally connected and began to ring, distant and echoing. “Please pick up,” he mumbled. “C’mon, please, please pick up…”

“Hello?” Sully sounded confused and a little wary. Nate couldn’t blame him. In their lives, unexpected calls from unknown numbers were bad news just as often as they were telemarketers.

“Sully, it’s me.” Nate swallowed hard. “I’m in Nepal– or Tibet, we might’ve crossed the border, I dunno–”

“Kid, calm down,” Sully said. “What’s going on?”

Nate slumped back against the wall of Schaefer’s house. “It’s Elena,” he said thickly. She was just on the other side of that wall, bleeding out, maybe she was already gone– “She was doing a story on Lazarevic, she ended up coming with me, and she… she’s hurt.” He shook his head. “It’s bad, Sully, it’s really bad.”

“Okay,” Sully said. Nate could hear movement and rustling in the background. “Okay, kid. I’m in Manila right now. Should be able to get a flight to Beijing. Where in Nepal are you?”

“It’s this village up in the mountains, I-I don’t know where exactly.” Maybe Chloe knew the coordinates. Maybe Schaefer had a map. “I’ll get the location and send it to you.”

“Just leave a voicemail if you call while I’m in the air.” There was the distinct sound of a door falling shut on Sully’s end of the line. “Should I call this number back, or–”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s Elena’s phone, I’ll have it with me.” Nate squeezed his eyes shut. “Thanks, Sully.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, kid,” Sully said. “I’ll call when I land in China.”

“Okay.” Nate didn’t want to hang up, but he knew he had to. Had to let Sully start making his own calls to get on a plane. “Okay, I’ll– talk to you soon.”

“Just hang in there,” Sully said. “Both of you.”

Nate nodded and took a deep, shaky breath when Sully hung up. Sully was on his way. Now there was nothing he could do but go back to waiting. He leaned his head back against the wall. “Hear that, Elena?” he mumbled. “You gotta hang in there. Sully said so.”


	126. Nate/Elena, when we were the happiest we ever were

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For elliedrake: things you said when we were the happiest we ever were

“…by the power vested in me, I declare you husband and wife,” the judge said with a smile. “You may ki–”

He didn’t get to finish talking before Elena flung herself at Nate, her arms around his neck and laughing even as she kissed him. Nate was laughing too, and actually lifted her up off the ground for a few seconds, holding her close for their first married kiss.

“Wow,” Nate said when he set her down and pulled back from the kiss, his forehead pressed to hers. “We– We did it.”

“Yeah.” Elena put her left hand to his cheek. She really liked the look of that ring on her finger. “We sure did.”

Nate laughed again and leaned in to kiss her again. “Congratulations,” the judge said when they parted.

Elena cleared her throat, suddenly remembering that they did have a bit of an audience. “Thanks,” she said, then reached out and took Nate’s hand–her  _husband’s_  hand– and turned towards Sully. “C’mon, you gotta sign the papers,” she said as he lowered her camera. “Make it even more official.”


	127. Nate/Elena, with no space between us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree: things you said with no space between us.

“Can I ask you something?”

Nate’s half-whisper seemed loud in the dark quiet of their bedroom. Elena had been well on her way to asleep, warm and content with her arm around his waist and his hand tracing idle patterns over her back. She tilted her head back to look up at him and shrugged. “Think you just did,” she replied, and smiled when he made a face at her. “But you can ask me something else.”

He let out a put-upon sigh and shook his head. “How’d you track me down in the jungle after Sully took off?”

“After the two of you ditched me, you mean.”

“His fault.”

“Uh-huh.” She chuckled and shifted in place, sliding her hand up to toy with his hair. For all the times they’d teased each other about that incident, she couldn’t believe she’d never told him how she’d found him in the first place. “That GPS unit you guys stole when you took off without me,” she said.

“We didn’t  _steal_  it,” Nate said, sounding offended. “You left it on the boat!”

“Because I assumed that I’d be on the boat when it left.” Elena ruffled his hair. “And for a thief you’re awful touchy about being accused of theft.”

“Ex-thief,” Nate corrected. Elena smiled at that. “And I’m only touchy when I’m accused of stealing things I didn’t really steal.”

“Right.” She rolled her eyes and giggled when he wrinkled his nose at her. “Anyway, I had the rest of the equipment and info that went with the GPS. It wasn’t hard to track you down.”

“Mm.” Nate ran his hand up and down her arm. “I’m glad you did.”

If she’d been a little less stubborn, if she’d just given up there and let them go, that would have been the end of it. She probably never would have seen Nate again. She certainly wouldn’t be lying here, wrapped up in his arms in the bed they shared in the home they’d bought together. She couldn’t have guessed that this was where she’d end up when she decided to chase after a couple of asshole treasure hunters who’d run away with her story.

“Yeah,” she said and leaned up to kiss him. “Me too.” He kissed her back, his hand sliding up into her hair, and Elena smiled when they parted. “After all, you  _really_  needed to be punched,” she added, and Nate groaned and buried his face in his pillow.


	128. Young!Nate & Sully, when I was crying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree: things you said when I was crying. WARNING for semi-graphic description of arm injury.

“Nate, come on!”

Nate took a deep breath as he sprinted for the edge of the roof. He could make the jump, he knew it, he’d be fine and then he and Sully could get outta here. Nate grinned as he jumped– a grin that vanished immediately as his foot caught on something, turning his jump into a headlong plunge towards the ground.

He heard Sully shout after him as he fell. Nate flailed at the wall, trying to grab onto it to slow his fall. It worked, sort of, but he still hit the ground hard. Something cracked when he landed, and he let out a strangled scream as pain shot through his arm. Nate pushed himself upright with his good arm, his head pounding and sweat rolling down the side of his face. On instinct, he looked down at his broken arm and had a fleeting impression of white bone and blood and horribly wrong angles before he looked away, his vision almost going black.

“Nate! Nate!?” Sully sounded panicked as he rounded the corner into the alley. And somehow, the sight of Sully running towards him was what pushed him out of his shock. Nate let out a harsh, shaky sob before clenching his jaw and squeezing his eyes shut. Dammit, he was sixteen, he was too old for this– too old to be crying and too old to be making these stupid, stupid mistakes.

“Oh, shit,” Sully said, his voice much closer, and Nate cracked his eyes open to see Sully kneeling in front of him, looking downright terrified as he looked Nate over.

Nate felt something cold open up in his stomach. It was just a broken arm, right? He wasn’t gonna die… “Sully…” he mumbled, blinking hard, and started trying to sit up.

“No. No, no no, no, just hold still…” Sully put his hand on Nate’s shoulder and eased him back against the wall. “You hit your head pretty bad, you’re bleeding a lot, so just… don’t move.”

Oh. That wasn’t good. Nate swallowed hard, but did as Sully said. Sully let out a sharp breath, then glanced back at the front of the alley. “Okay. I know a doctor in town, he’ll be able to fix you up. I’m gonna get a car. Just– just stay still, okay, kid? I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Nate said, but Sully was already gone. He closed his eyes again and tried to focus on breathing. Sully had looked really worried– no. Sully had looked  _scared_ , and he never looked scared. Maybe it was worse than Nate knew. Maybe he was hurt really, really bad, and Sully could tell, and he was just gonna… gonna die in this alleyway, all alone, and…

Another sob escaped, and Nate instinctively raised his good arm to scrub at his eyes. Distantly, he heard a car door open and footsteps running towards him. “Okay, kid, come on,” Sully said. “Let’s get you outta here.”

Nate opened his eyes as Sully put a hand on his shoulder to help him to his feet. The movement sent pain shooting through his arm again, and Nate bit his tongue to keep from sobbing again. He managed to get on his feet, though, leaning heavily on Sully and breathing hard. “You’re gonna be okay, Nate,” Sully said as they began to slowly move towards the car. “You’re gonna be okay.”


	129. Nate/Elena, when you were drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For beltsquid: things you said when you were drunk. Partially inspired by [this TFLN remix](http://beltsquid.tumblr.com/post/121287194159).

“Nate.” Elena stared intently at him as she slid her glass towards him. “Try this.”

Nate frowned at the glass and cautiously picked it up. It smelled like fruit punch and rubbing alcohol, and he made a face at it. “What’s in this?”

“It tastes like  _blue_.”

“Right.” Nate set the glass down and slid it back over to her. “Why don’t you finish it, instead.”

“Okay!” Elena took her glass back and downed half of it in one go. Nate shook his head. He was pretty buzzed, but Elena was completely smashed. He was not looking forward to dealing with her hungover whining tomorrow morning.

He finished off the last of his beer and watched in a mix of horror and admiration as Elena threw back the rest of her blue-flavored drink. “I want another one,” she said, leaning over the bar to look for the bartender.

“Nope.” Nate stood up and took her arm. “C’mon. Time to go.”

“Noooooo,” Elena whined, reaching back for her empty glass as Nate helped her off her barstool. “I’m being kidnapped.”

“You are not being kidnapped.” Nate crouched down and picked up her purse, then slid it up to her shoulder. “I’m taking you home.”

“I don’t wanna be kidnapped again,” she said, blatantly ignoring Nate’s perfectly reasonable statements. “Once was enough.”

Nate put his arm around her and steered her towards the door. “When did you get kidnapped?”

“Roman an’ Navarro,” she said, slurring their names together. “Kidnapped me.” She walked in silence for a couple moments, then smiled. “An’ then I kicked that guy outta the helicopter.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Saved your life.”

Nate chuckled. “Several times, actually.”

“Well. ‘s a life worth saving,” Elena said, reaching out to take his hand. Nate blinked at her, trying to formulate a response to that, but then Elena bumped her head against his arm. “Why haven’t you ever been kidnapped?”

“Wha– I’ve been kidnapped lots of times,” Nate replied. “I got kidnapped by pirates last year!”

“Oh, yeah, right.” Elena nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’d wanna get kidnapped again unless it was by something cute.”

He grinned at her. “Like me?”

“I was thinking baby sloths. Oh! Or puppies.”


	130. Nate/Elena, when you were scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For scribblykimbree: things you said when you were scared.

The first time he almost lost her, he didn’t really know what was at risk. Oh, to be sure, he liked Elena, thought she was smart and tough and funny and cute, and he sure as hell didn’t want her to die. But he had no idea exactly what he’d be losing when she fell through those boards.

He threw himself back across the bridge to catch her, and when he felt her wrist start to slip from his, he had a sudden vision of her falling away from him, her scream of terror echoing in his mind. “You’ve got to let it go!” he said, and Elena cursed angrily but dropped the camera, grabbed onto his arm with both hands. He pulled her to safety and stayed a little closer than usual, after that.

The second time he almost lost her, he knew exactly what he was about to lose. He knew exactly how it felt to wake up with her in his arms, to spend hours on the phone talking about nothing, to make her laugh. He knew she made him happier than anyone he’d ever met, and she was bleeding out in front of him. Nate clutched her hand desperately, as if he could keep her from leaving if he just held on tight enough. “Elena, don’t  _do_  this,” he begged, because it worked last time, right? Last time he asked her to let him save her, she listened, so it should work again. But she didn’t move, didn’t wake up, and he didn’t know what else to do.

The third time he almost lost her, he saw it coming. The entire time they were crossing the airport, he couldn’t forget that photo Marlowe had showed him, the threat of what they’d do to Elena if he didn’t cooperate. And here he was, leading her right to to them. So when he saw the Jeep, he knew he could stop it. He could keep her safe. Do _something_  right by her.

He landed on the ground on the other side of the gate, watched as Elena went from confused to shocked to angry. He’d expected all that, but when she started to scale the gate after him, he panicked. She saw it, she knew why, and he knew that was the only reason she climbed back to the ground.

“Nate, you’re not gonna lose–” Elena put her hands on his, trying to convince him, but he’d been through this too many times before.

“I just can’t go through that again.” Nate shifted his hands under hers, laced their fingers together, hating that this might be the last time he got to touch her. She’d be safe. He wouldn’t. “So just take that truck and get outta here. While you still can.” Begging her to let him save her, again, except this time she wasn’t hurt. She wasn’t dying. This time, just this once, he could keep her safe.


End file.
